It's the beginning of the school year. Families are preparing their kids for the school road, equipping them with backpacks and pencils, trying to push their sleep rhythms back to normal.

Teachers are preparing, too. Collecting materials, planning schedules and organizing their classrooms. Soon everything will be ready, and the work will start. Groups get together, learn together, form friendships and spend a lot of time with each other. School days begin to happen. They will follow their own paths. Lots of things will happen. There will be lots of emotions, plenty to talk about, huge amounts of shared information and a variety of situations.

I remember my first day when I started teaching twenty years ago. There was an experienced colleague of mine sitting next to me in the staff room who sighed and said:" This is where the chaos starts, once again." I felt like I was plunging downhill on a water coaster. That's about how I've felt every August since then. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching, but let's face it, there are many things going on that are difficult to predict, prevent or control. As a teacher, you never know what will happen today or tomorrow, in good and in bad. And quite often you don't know a great deal of the things that have happened during the school day. Things that might be good to know.

Wellbeing Model 2.0 

At School Day we have worked throughout the summer to develop the Wellbeing Model 2.0 for schools to help teachers and school leaders find out what happens at school, how students experience their school days, and what to do for potential problems that might arise. For this work, we have engaged experienced teachers, highly skilled technology experts, and university professors who study wellbeing at schools.

We have developed a model with categories ranging from the physical learning environment to social-emotional skills. Now our app will ask the students whether they had trouble coming to school in the morning but also whether they are motivated in learning, and everything in between. Students will get their questions in the morning and in the afternoon. Answering will take about one minute and it doesn't require anything from the teacher except to give that one minute for the students to use their phones or classroom devices to answer the questions.

Imagine finding out about bullying the same day it happens for the first time. Imagine noticing budding lack of motivation and getting simple advice for it. Imagine singling out a student in your class who doesn't have anyone to talk to during his or her school day. Imagine learning that someone is scared in the hallway during the breaks. Maybe you can make a change. Sometimes you only need to know about the problem to solve it. Sometimes simple things help.

At School Day we believe that simple things can make a big difference. Our app is simple to use but it provides teachers and school leaders with valuable data so that they can make decisions based on knowledge and intervene without delay.

Stay tuned and we will have a free trial for you later this year. Sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page not to miss it!