Our Strategic Pillars

Wellbeing

Enabling positive and holistic wellbeing for children and young people.

OUR GOAL

To enable children to experience positive and holistic wellbeing that allows them to engage in learning and improve their lives throughout school and beyond.

By 2027, we aim to impact 150,000 children per year.

Children show improvement in social, emotional and mental wellbeing, through their behavour, attitudes and social connections at school.

Children show improvement in learning engagement and outcomes.

THE NEED

Persistent inequity is impacting the wellbeing and education of many Australian children.

Children and young people facing disadvantage are:

  • twice as likely to experience poor mental wellbeing and by Year 3, are nine months behind their peers.
  • more likely to experience a lower sense of belonging which affects their motivation, participation and academic outcomes.

Our work to support children’s wellbeing

28,705

children

4,060

teachers

106

school communities


Our unique
model drives
our impact

Schools Plus’s updated working model reflects a deliberate and strategic shift towards more multiyear partnership projects where the potential to deepen impact and influence long term sustainable change is strengthened. Partnership programs begin at the incubation stage where promising initiatives, interventions and projects are supported to rigorously test and measure impact. Learnings from these programs are elevated to the expand stage. Where appropriate, we further deepen our work to “scale” these initiatives and engage in advocacy to “influence systems change,” creating broader impact within the education landscape.

How we give children more opportunities

We partner with schools to help children develop their social and emotional skill, their ability to engage emotionally and cognitively and to build healthy lifestyle habits, so they can thrive in school and beyond.

Some examples of our work include:

  • Building capacity of teachers
  • Programs that enhance and develop children’s social and emotional skills
  • Access to services including social workers and psychologists
  • Activities that promote healthy lifestyles

Where we work

Schools Plus works with school communities across all states and territories in Australia. Our work supports children from schools with an ICSEA score (Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage) of less than 1000. We also partner with special needs schools.

STORIES OF IMPACT