Drawing on trauma-informed practices enables all students to overcome barriers and reach their goals.
Recently, I had the privilege of attending a Community of Practice on trauma-informed learning alongside Assistant Principal Malcolm McIver and Team Leader – Student Wellbeing, Rob Mason. The Community of Practice included teachers from other distance education/virtual schools across Australia and New Zealand.
A key insight I took away was that every student faces unique barriers, and our role as teachers and parents/carers is to provide them with the tools to overcome these challenges.
Connection and persistence are crucial to this.
Connection helps students navigate difficulties by fostering trust and a sense of belonging. At Virtual School Victoria (VSV), we prioritise building these connections by dedicating time with students for relationship development and maintenance.
Once connection is established, persistence is key. At VSV, we never give up on finding ways to help our students overcome barriers.
As a parent/carer – the greatest gifts you can give your children are meaningfully connecting with them and persisting in supporting them, even when challenges arise.
These insights are aligned with the SPACE model, used by VSV, as an approach to trauma-informed learning. This model helps us stage learning, make it predictable, adapt learning to meet students’ needs, stay connected and enable students to succeed.
By Kevin Chung
Middle Years SVAL Coordinator, Year 8 Student Coordinator and Year 8 English Teacher