Moreton Bay College named as finalist in national school award

A prestigious private school on Brisbane’s bayside has been named as a finalist in the country’s top school awards.

Students from Moreton Bay College.

A BRISBANE bayside college could be the country’s best school for taking care of their students after being named as a finalist in the prestigious national school awards.

Moreton Bay College at Manly West was revealed as a finalist in the Australian Education Awards for Best Student Wellbeing Program and is the only Queensland independent school nominated in the category.

The nomination comes after MBC launched a new wellbeing program called Hearts and Minds in 2018.

The program consists of five actions which include connect, be active, keep learning, take notice and give.

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MBC’s deputy head of secondary students, Michelle Mckersey, said research showed when these five actions are embedded, the wellbeing of students improves.

“To accurately measure wellbeing in a school, it is essential to have a measurement instrument that aligns with that school’s context and its approach to wellbeing,” she said.

“For this reason, we sought expertise in the area of wellbeing measurement in schools,

forming a research partnership with associate professor Mathew White and professor Faye McCallum from the University of Adelaide.”

Mr White and Ms Faye worked with pastoral staff at MBC as they undertook an ethics-approved measurement project at the school to improve the wellbeing of the MBC community.

Based on the data from the project, several actions have evolved, one of which was to increase student engagement through the implementation of a student wellbeing action team, called the Hearts and Minds Committee (HMC).

“The Hearts and Minds framework, our research partnership with the University of Adelaide and the HMC have set us on an exciting pathway to being genuinely proactive about student wellbeing,” said head of college, Janet Stewart.

“We wholeheartedly believe in this evidence-based approach as we strive to educate the hearts and minds of the young women of MBC.”

The Australian Education Awards will be held on November 6 in Sydney.