At Barwon Heads Primary School we have a strong belief that it is not enough to teach our children just how to read, write and solve maths problems. We believe that it is important to educate our students socially and emotionally; to enable them to flourish both at primary school and in their life beyond school.

This is why we have embraced the science of Positive Psychology which, when applied to education, we call Positive Education. Positive Psychology is a new branch of psychology that emerged from  traditional psychology’s deficit based model. It is a strengths based approach that aims to prevent, rather than cure mental illness and anxiety. The aim of positive psychology is to improve the quality of people’s lives.

At Barwon Heads Primary School we have our own model which is based on Martin Seligman’s PERMA model. We teach Positive Education by using the VIA Character Strengths.

Our aim is to equip our students with a toolbox of strategies that they can use to be resilient and lead happy and meaningful lives.