Our Positive Education Model

Our Positive Education model can be thought of as a road map of what people want for themselves, their children and their community. Good health, frequent positive emotions, supportive relationships, a sense of purpose and meaning, and moments of complete immersion and absorption. A life where a person uses their character strengths in ways that support the self and others, and that has flourishing at the heart.

In this article we unpack the four elements of the GGS Applied Model of Positive Education. beginning with the inside circle of our model, flourish.

Our model begins at the centre circle, labelled ‘flourish’ – the desired outcome for students, staff, parents, and the wider community. Flourishing is not a goal we strive for daily but a by-product of living in ways that nurture personal wellbeing and contribute to the wellbeing of others. 

Flourishing refers to life going well – feeling good and functioning effectively (Huppert & So, 2012; Seligman, 2011). At GGS, we summarise this as ‘feeling good and doing good’. This captures both the hedonistic aspects of wellbeing, such as enjoying positive experiences and life satisfaction, and the eudaimonic aspects, such as having purpose and serving something greater than oneself. ‘Feeling good’ involves optimism, vitality, emotional stability, and resilience, while ‘doing good’ means caring for others, building positive relationships, and contributing meaningfully to society. 

Positive Education is based on the premise that what we do matters: developing positive mental health and wellbeing in adolescence, along with skills to maintain it and address difficulties, supports becoming a fully engaged adult. This is supported by analysis of 1,000 participants in the Australian Temperament Project (O’Connor et al., 2016), a long-running study of social and emotional development. In adolescence, mental health comprised six domains – relationships, emotions, health, engagement, accomplishment, and purpose. Positive mental health was linked to career progression and civic engagement (volunteering, citizenship) over a decade later. In this way, Positive Education is about learning to flourish. 

“Character strengths are ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that come naturally and easily to a person and that enable high functioning and performance.” (Linley, 2006) 

James Pawelski, founding President of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA), discussed in 2011 what Positive Psychology means by the term ‘positive’.  He first states that the term does not mean ‘marked by acceptance or approval’ and this is a common misunderstanding that some people have about the field of Positive Education. It is not trying to say in any way that it is the ‘correct’ or ‘right’ form of education and that everything else that has come before has been ‘negative’ or ‘wrong’ education.  Pawelski goes on to reference two meanings of the term ‘positive’ that are relevant – firstly, helping people move in a positive direction and into positive levels of wellbeing, and secondly, coming from the Latin ponere meaning ‘to set up’ or ‘to build’.  It is this view that we take of the term ‘positive’ in Positive Education.  It is a form of education where we build skills and resources in our students and teachers and where we take a strengths-based approach to growth and development. 

Hence, from our term ‘flourish’ at the core of the GGS Model, we move outward to Character Strengths.  This highlights the importance of schools introducing a common language of what is right, of what works  –  a language of the positive human qualities which, when actioned, contribute to living a good life. Developing an understanding of one’s character strengths and utilising them in a variety of different ways builds confidence and competence in individuals. 

We remind students, staff and parents, that the 24 VIA (Values in Action) Character Strengths are universally valued, they exist within each of us and that they can be intentionally nurtured.  We also ensure that our community is well aware that, whilst our character strengths are relatively stable, they can and do change with our changing life experience and context.  As each character strength can be overused, underused or misused, it is important we also explore the ‘shadow-side’ of each of these morally valued human qualities. 

The Character Strengths underpin our GGS Model and also provide an access point into the next ring of our Model, which lists the six related domains of wellbeing.

The GGS Model for Positive Education comprises six related domains.  Each of these domains contributes meaningfully to overall wellbeing and is supported by science.  As Seligman explains in his book, Flourish, wellbeing is a construct and not actually a directly measurable quality.  Wellbeing, like the weather, consists of various measurable elements, each contributing to wellbeing, but none defining wellbeing in and of itself.  The name and definitions for the six related measurable elements of wellbeing are:      ​ 

Positive Relationships: Increasing social and emotional skills in order to create and promote strong and nourishing relationships with self and others. 

Positive Emotions: Experiencing a broad range of positive emotions and developing skills and knowledge to anticipate, initiate, experience, prolong and build positive emotions. 

Positive Health: Practising sustainable habits for optimal physical and psychological health that are developed from a sound knowledge base. 

Positive Engagement: Promoting complete immersion in activities through understanding the nature of engagement, the pathways to it and the function it has in individual wellbeing. 

Positive Accomplishment: Enabling individual growth through striving for and achieving meaningful outcomes. 

Positive Purpose: Understanding, believing in and serving something greater than yourself and deliberately engaging in activities for the benefits of others. 

For each of these domains, we continue to learn about the most relevant research, and consider the most effective ways of exploring activities that develop awareness and nurture understanding for humans of all ages. 

Using longitudinal data from the Australian Temperament Project, O’Connor and colleagues (2016) confirmed that the six domains of the GGS Model can be accurately modelled as a measure of positive mental health in adolescence and that together the domains show promising long-term predictive validity.  This supports the need for Positive Education to adopt comprehensive and multi-faceted approaches to building and protecting mental health in young people. 

As we move to the outside ring of the GGS Model of Positive Education, we find the repeated processes Learn, Live, Teach and Embed.  These four fundamental processes bring our Model to life. We provide opportunities for the staff and the parents in our community to learn the key principles of Positive Education. We then endeavour to live according to and model these principles.  We explicitly and implicitly teach related topics of wellbeing to our students. Finally, we then endeavour to embed the principles within our whole school practices and policies. 

Learn It: Sharing opportunities as a whole-school community to understand and engage with the science of wellbeing. 

Live It: Enacting evidence-based wellbeing practices in our own way in our own lives. 

Teach It: Providing students with dedicated time to discover and explore each of the key domains of wellbeing. 

Embed It: Adopting long-term, school-wide policies and practices which support and nurture wellbeing within individuals and within the community. 

Implementing Positive Education is an ongoing, reflective process. Schools continuously ask how to best support students, staff, and families – whether through explicit lessons, embedding wellbeing in curriculum and policies, mentoring students, or fostering a positive school culture. 

The repeated processes of Learn, Live, Teach, Embed in the GGS Model reflect this iterative approach. Wellbeing is both “caught and taught,” and our community strives to interact in ways that nurture it daily. We continually refine our practices, trial new activities, and respond to feedback, recognising that mistakes are part of the journey. Each insight gained strengthens the capacity of individuals – and the wider school community – to flourish.