Wellbeing

A group of girls all smiling in a relaxed pose.

At Yanco, we are dedicated to providing safe, supportive, and engaging learning environments that promote the health, happiness, and success of all students. Our commitment to wellbeing extends across both day and residential life, ensuring that boarding students also experience care, support, and a strong sense of community.

We focus on fostering positive, respectful relationships and helping students feel a genuine sense of belonging within the school and wider community. By providing high-quality learning opportunities alongside wellbeing programs, we empower students to thrive academically, socially, and personally.

The Wellbeing Framework for Schools helps schools support the cognitive, physical, social, emotional and spiritual development of students and allows them to connect, succeed and thrive throughout their education.

How we support student wellbeing

Supporting each student’s mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing is part of everyday school life.

We do this through:

teachers who help students feel welcome and included
access to school counsellors, school psychologists and specialist staff
programs that support health, social skills, attendance and positive behaviour
help for students who are new or changing year levels
clear expectations for behaviour and respectful relationships
staff who get to know each child and work closely with families
developing health care plans for students
open communication about wellbeing and support.

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Wellbeing lessons

Our school is committed to the wellbeing and personal growth of all students. Students in Years 7–10 have weekly wellbeing lessons as part of the Wellio Program, where they engage in activities designed to support their social, emotional, and mental health.

These lessons include The Resilience Project (TRP), an evidence-based program that helps students develop resilience, emotional regulation, empathy, and positive decision-making skills. By integrating TRP into our wellbeing curriculum, we are able to provide a holistic approach that supports students in navigating challenges, building strong relationships, and developing the skills they need to thrive both at school and beyond.

Life Ready

Life Ready is a mandatory 25-hour course for students in Years 11 and/or 12 in NSW public schools.

The program aims to prepare and support senior students as they encounter situations related to health and safety as they become more independent and gain more responsibilities.

Life Ready focuses on offering opportunities for students to build the functional knowledge and skills for life post school.

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Positive Behaviour for Success (PBS)

Here at YAHS, we use the foundations of Positive Behaviour for Learning although, our students have rebranded this as Positive Behaviour for Success (PBS) – a whole-school approach for creating a positive, safe and supportive school climate where students can learn and develop. Our whole school community works together to establish expected behaviours and teach them to all students in regular PBS sessions.

Through Positive Behaviour for Success, we teach our students the behaviours we wish to see, implementing activities for students to practise these behaviours and modelling these behaviours by staff members. The core values of Yanco Agricultural High School PBS are:

An Image depicting the 3 steps to our learning philosophy - Prinde, Respect & Responsibility

The Yanco Way

In conjunction with PBS, we have created The Yanco Way. The Yanco Way is a set of expectations that directly link to our school values and expectations. The Yanco Way promotes positive behaviour and relationships across the whole school.

These values are displayed around the school and in the dormitory areas, to reinforce our values and expectations.

These short and sharp expectations are easily understood by our students and the visuals are a gentle reminder for all students and staff of what we expect and pride ourselves on.