The 2025 PESA Conference in Adelaide gathered educators and researchers to explore Collective Solutions for Wellbeing and Trauma Aware Pedagogies. A team from Geelong Grammar School and the Institute of Positive Education attended and returned with renewed inspiration, practical frameworks, and important questions about how we can strengthen wellbeing across our school community.

Cat Lamb – Head of Positive Education 

For Cat, one of the strongest takeaways from the conference was the reminder of just how important knowledge of your context is. This was highlighted during the podcast recording with Tom Brunzell and Lea Waters; that the real work is in discerning which strategies fit our school community and which don’t. There’s no obligation to adopt a whole program wholesale, but rather to experiment, reflect, and adapt with a clear awareness of where we are.  

This was reaffirmed through the many discussions about systems, and the reminder that what we see on the surface is often just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath that lies a complex web of structures, relationships, and cultural factors that shape, encourage, or disincentivise different behaviours.  

At the same time, what made the experience so energising was being in a room full of people who share the same language, passion, and commitment to student wellbeing. So often, those leading positive education or wellbeing initiatives can feel isolated in their schools without a large team or faculty behind them. It was a powerful reminder of how valuable it is to connect with others walking a similar path, not only at conferences, but in the ongoing conversations that sustain and inspire this work.

This is one of the reasons Cat is so passionate about the Institute of Positive Education’s Community of Practice, a space designed to keep those connections alive by bringing together anyone interested in, or working within, the field to share insights, challenges, and successes.

Jacqui Moses –Positive Education Collaborator and Year 5 Teacher 

For Jacqui Moses, the conference was a reminder of the incredible work already happening and the importance of continuing to teach proactive strategies for wellbeing within our schools. She highlighted the word impact as a guiding theme for her future considerations: We could ask ourselves ‘Will this initiative make a genuine and enduring difference?’ Jacqui left encouraged by the innovative thinking in the sector and mindful of the importance of prioritising initiatives that have lasting and measurable impact. 

Key Takeaways – Jacqui 

• Gina Chick’s framing of trauma as a “wound of connection” was a powerful reminder that the deepest hurts often stem from the breakdown of meaningful relational bonds. In our quest to make things faster, smoother, and more productive, we risk losing touch with our capacity to connect deeply with ourselves, with others, and with the natural world. The importance of connection was a central theme of the conference and was echoed by many. 
• Professor Kate Filia provided sobering data on youth mental health, noting the silent struggles of many young girls compared with the more visible behavioural distress often shown by boys. While young people rely heavily on digital platforms, she noted, they still prefer face-to-face support. This underscores the importance of mentoring programs, buddy systems, and personal check-ins. 
  

Simon Haigh – Head of House and Senior Geography Teacher 

Simon Haigh noted a clear and consistent theme: staff wellbeing is key to optimising student wellbeing. Thriving educators are positively engaged and best placed to support students, while those experiencing fatigue or burnout face challenges in providing students with the care and attention they need. 

Key Takeaways – Simon 

• If student wellbeing is to remain a true priority, schools must also make staff wellbeing a central focus. Melinda Phillips (Compassionate Schools) reinforced this point with research on the risks of “empathy-based stress” and compassion fatigue. She argued for a shift from empathetic distress, which can lead to burnout, to compassion, which supports pro-social motivation and improved health. Her CARE model (Coordinated, Aligned & Resourced Environments) offers a way to design school systems that nurture staff as well as students. 

• Justin Robinson highlighted the four partners in school wellbeing: leaders, educators, students, and families, emphasising that each group holds a shared responsibility in creating a thriving school community. Robinson explained how whole-school wellbeing can transfer from “aligned” to “optimal,”, with leaders, educators, students, and families moving from activating, integrating, learning, and supporting, to inspiring, modelling, embracing, and amplifying. 

Sophie Bason-Betts – Institute of Positive Education (communications)  

Sophie Bason-Betts was inspired by both the presentations and the collaborative spirit of the conference. Beyond the sessions, Sophie reflected on the value of conversations with educators from across the country and how exchanges quickly moved beyond small talk into honest sharing of challenges and successes in Positive Education.

Key Takeaways – Sophie 

• Judy Hilton’s workshop explored what it means to build a truly strengths-based school culture, where staff model their own strengths, use strengths-based language, and apply this approach in difficult conversations (connecting before correcting). The idea of a strengths constellation particularly resonated, offering a more nuanced view of how different strengths combine to shape behaviour. 

• The Hackathon shared multiple high-impact, easy-to-implement solutions to common challenges in education. Schools showcased initiatives such as The Peaceful Pause, a daily, school-wide intentional pause, and Prime the Day – the PERMAH Way, which highlights how the first five minutes of a class can shape the mood for the rest of the lesson. These real-life practices showed how small, intentional actions can create ripple effects for both staff and student 

Sean Micelli – Bostock House Positive Education Coordinator and Year 4 Teacher 

Sean Micelli left feeling inspired and valued the ideas and practical strategies provided to support both staff and student wellbeing. 

Key Takeaways – Sean 

• Gina Chick’s keynote highlighted that productivity is often prioritised over human connection, with many broken aspects of the world traced back to this imbalance. She emphasised receptivity, the quality of our attention, and active listening as powerful tools for fostering meaningful connection, and challenged participants to replace the word “should” with the question “What is the most nourishing thing I can do for myself right now?”

• Justin Robinson’s Staff Wellbeing Quadrant offered practical strategies for both individual staff and schools in promoting wellbeing and preventing illbeing. These include cultivating gratitude, nurturing relationships, and practising mindfulness (individual promotion of wellbeing); prioritising sleep and help-seeking (individual prevention of illbeing); and school-level actions such as addressing workload, supporting autonomy, and creating playful, connected cultures. 

Bec Shea – Toorak Campus Positive Education Coordinator and Year 3 Teacher 

Bec Shea identified connection as the most resonant theme during the conference and reflected that while we are more connected to devices than ever, we are becoming increasingly disconnected from one another and the natural environment.

Key Takeaways – Bec 

• Gina Chick’s keynote Resilience in the Wilderness reinforced the wellbeing benefits of being in nature and left Bec inspired by the potential for outdoor and adventure education, even within urban settings, to strengthen student connection with nature and community. 

• Knox Grammar’s Cultivating Culture Masterclass was a practical session that used the systems thinking model to delve deeper into student culture and patterns of behaviour. It also outlined a Student Avatar activity which, informed by student voice, revealed rewarded behaviours, ‘invisible rules’, and indicators of social status – helping staff better understand student beliefs and implement strategies for lasting change. 
• Professor Kate Felicia’s keynote highlighted the global loneliness epidemic and the rising mental health crisis, particularly among young people. This reinforced the importance of closely analysing staff and student wellbeing data and being innovative in designing systematic changes that deliver high-impact outcomes for both students and staff. 

Looking Ahead 

Across our team, recurring themes of connection, staff wellbeing, collective responsibility, and measurable impact underscored the importance of embedding wellbeing into every layer of school life. The conference provided both inspiration and practical tools, reinforcing our commitment to creating thriving, connected school communities. We look forward to embedding some of these ideas in our practice and continuing to share insights with colleagues across the Positive Education community.