NIS: School as a territory of well-being
It is symbolic that the first roundtable in the Year of the Child on topical issues of modern education was dedicated to children’s well-being.
As part of the Project, dedicated to the 180th Anniversary of Ibrai Altynsarin, last year Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools held a series of roundtables on priority areas of global education. The demand for a new platform in the new reality is in its logical continuation for the professional development of teachers, the statistics of roundtables show that more than a thousand teachers and representatives of educational institutions from all regions joined each conversation.
The significant topic of the first meeting of the Year of the Child was “Learner’s Well-Being: Building Supportive School Communities”, and it coincides with the strategic priority of global education, which is currently being worked on in most countries.
“School as a territory of well-being” – the key postulate and a positive title naturally coincided in the report of the Chair of the Board of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools Kulyash Shamshidinova. Children's well-being is built on the learning, what supportive school communities should be like and why they are important right now?
The answers to these difficult questions, as well as the NIS algorithms and best practices for creating a child-friendly environment, filled up the professional cases of the roundtable participants.
Headmaster of Taldykorgan Intellectual School Victor Sosin briefed on the new standards of international school accreditation, including children’s well-being, and specific examples of systematic work to create a child-friendly atmosphere in school, family and society.
How can education and healthcare be united for students’ well-being? The integration of healthcare and well-being in the educational process, including new health paradigms based on good nutrition, physical activity, mental health, was analyzed by Guf Buys, the Chair of the UNESCO Consulate for Global Health and Education. Deborah Allen, an international UNODC consultant, PhD, MPH, who has been working with NIS for many years on the Strong Family Project, identified positive parenting as one of the major factors in a child's emotional well-being.
The Chair of the Committee for Children's Rights Protection of the Ministry of Education and Science, Essengazy Imangaliyev, stressed that Kazakhstan has mechanisms for the protection of children's rights and control of their well-being, as well as tools for establishing prosperous school communities.
The Country Child Wellbeing Index offers 4 domains (directions), 56 indicators, including children's access to decent living conditions, education, healthcare, infrastructure, violence prevention and socialization opportunities. All activities carried out and planned within the framework of the Year of Children are also focused on these key indicators. The systematic and large-scale implementation of the strategy to create the child’s well-being as a whole in the country began with Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, Essengazy Imangaliyev emphasized.
Director of the Center for Human Rights Research, Inclusion and Civil Society of the Eurasian Technological University, moderator of the Public Project on the Reform of School Education “School of the Future” Khalida Azhigulova placed emphasis of the roundtable participants on the changes necessary to build supportive and prosperous school communities, as well as on additional measures necessary to ensure the safety, healthcare and well-being of children in our country.
The methodologist Bakytgul Zhangaziyeva spoke about the cooperation of Education Administration of Atyrau region, which she represents, and Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools in a specific direction - in the development of a prosperous and safe educational environment.
Each meeting on the professional platform created by NIS for the country's educators has a mandatory continuation. A whole series of projects is planned in the Intellectual Schools to introduce the children’s well-being in domestic schools, as one of the most relevant and sought-after priorities in modern education.