Exam time is looming for senior students across the Canberra region; for a brief break from studying, St Francis Xavier College (SFX) treated their students to a morning of carefree fun.

The device-free hour is designed to help promote the physical and mental wellbeing of the Year 11 and 12 students through activities such as art, games, cookie decorating, circus performance and petting therapy animals.

The community, school and families have come together to host the morning with a deep understanding that wellbeing plays an imperative role in the learning outcomes of young minds. SFX principal Sandra Darley says the school is focused on student success in learning, so they try to encourage wellbeing practices throughout the year.

“We recognise that these examinations that they’re about to undertake are part of a whole assessment suite. They’re not the most important necessarily; we’re focusing on the idea that if we take care of our wellbeing, we’re likely to be successful as learners,” says Ms Darley.

Not seeing this type of activity at another school where she has been the leader, Ms Darley believes if you take care of yourself then you will be able to approach learning with a clear and focused mind. She says by highlighting the importance of wellbeing during these vital years, hopefully, it is a practice students will be able to carry with them throughout their adult years.

“They are young people, they have young brains, and we recognise that brain plasticity is an important element of their learning … If we’re developing that right thinking now, that that right thinking will impact on the sorts of learning and jobs that they undertake 20 years down the track.”

For students, especially those nearing the end of their secondary school years, the exams may have an impact on their future learning opportunities.

“If you’re looking to get into a specific uni, for a specific course, you sort of know how well you have to do on the exams and on the tests … but if you’ve done the preparation and you’ve done everything leading up to it, then you know you’re probably also okay for it,” says Year 12 student, Ethan Sawade.

Ethan and three other SFX students CW spoke to, said they’re feeling positive ahead of their tests knowing they have had the support from their peers, teachers and school community to best prepare.

“I know one of my friends she was not excited for exams, she’s been worrying about it and she’s just looking at me like, ‘Why aren’t you like freaking out?’ I think the school has been really supportive, I’ve just kind of come up and been like, it’s just another test cycle,” says Year 11 student, Audrey McCombie.

“I agree. Our school is pretty good with the path to wellbeing throughout seven to 12, whereas other schools I know they don’t have it consistently, especially the colleges. They don’t have those support networks, whereas I think we have a really good network of people who can help,” says Year 12 student, Sophia Fitzpatrick.

Not just a last-ditch attempt to help ease students’ nerves, wellbeing practices are present throughout each term. Sophia, one of the members of the Senior Leadership Team, says while times have been stressful with all the work they have to do, they ensure they carve out time for fun, too.

“It’s been able to help us leading up to the exams and make it stress-free … We’ve had a movie night for the senior students, we’ve had lots of little activities like that … We also have extra hours to teach or stay after school to help with our homework,” says Ethan.

The students came to school after hours in their pyjamas to watch Shrek together, which was a hit amongst the staff and students, while a lunchtime kickball competition between the houses also helps keep minds off of the exams during school hours.

“I think it’s important to have these activities to also recognise that although we’re in a stressful exam time period … and there’s all this work leading up to uni and stuff like that, we can still relax and we can still have fun and we can still rest our minds,” says Ethan.

Appreciating the effort the school has gone to for them, the students agree that it helps them enter their exam period on a better foot than they otherwise may have.

“Being able to have a happy mindset and free mind to think and learn before going in and learning the content helps so much. Being happy makes it so much easier to learn and makes you want to be here,” says Ethan.

“You can see everyone having fun and talking with friends, you can see people mucking around and having smiles on their faces, everyone is getting involved. It’s definitely really helping,” says Year 11 student, Jacob Seyderhelm.

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