

School connectedness is a significant part of your students' emotional and social development. It's important to foster school connectedness to diminish the likelihood of school refusal (or 'school can't'). This practice uses the WISE model to help you incorporate the four major components of school connectedness into your everyday actions at school, both in the classroom and throughout the school.
The four major components of the WISE model are:
W = warmth and empathy
Use empathy, respect, and understanding to help establish warm relationships with students.
I = inclusion
Find a role and sense of belonging for students.
S = strength focus
Notice, identify, and encourage all students’ strengths.
E = equity and fairness
Support students’ differences, remove discrimination, and practice a strong sense of fairness.
1.1 - physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students
4.1 - support student participation
4.3 - manage challenging behaviour
For further information, see Australian Professional Standards for Teachers AITSL page
As a teacher, you play a vital role in promoting school connectedness in your classroom and throughout the school.
Greater school connectedness means that diverse students are more likely to:
Importantly, students with greater school connectedness are less likely to engage in antisocial or health-risk behaviours and are less likely to experience depressive symptoms.
There are several benefits of greater school connectedness for you as a teacher, including:
You can incorporate the WISE model into your everyday practice by using the following methods:
You can help to create a warm school environment by:
Tips to create warm relationships at school:
Aim to create an environment where both students and teachers feel included and like they belong in the classroom, group, and school. Inclusion occurs when students feel a sense of empowerment and perceive an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance.
Tips to foster inclusion:
You can achieve a strength focus by recognising your own strengths and those of your students and by creating tasks and an atmosphere where strengths can be promoted and cultivated.
A strength focus requires:
Tips to foster your students’ strengths:
An equitable environment is one where there is openness and equal opportunity for all students and staff.
Tips to provide opportunities to demonstrate equity and fairness:
Download and print the WISE model here.
You can work through the steps that follow, or access them online via the Teachers & Support Staff section here.
List some of the things you do, and would like to do more of:
For more ideas look here.
List some of the things you do, and would like to do more of:
For more ideas look here.
List some of the ways you recognise:
For more ideas look here.
You can use this activity to promote a strength focus in your classroom:
List some ways you:
For more ideas look here.
You can use these activities to promote equity and fairness in your classroom:
Use the following activity to help students to understand their strengths:
Create a weekly strength-focused, verbal progress report:
We know that it is not always easy to keep track of what is working and what is not. So, we have created this template for you to record and reflect on what you are doing to help you create a more inclusive classroom. The implementation planner contains:
More information can be found at www.autismteenwellbeing.com.au. The Autism Teen Wellbeing website provides resources and strategies to help build protective factors against depression and anxiety for vulnerable young people by cultivating a sense of belonging and the ability to regulate emotions in the face of stress.
Designed for parents, teachers, schools and communities to support wellbeing in teenagers on the autism spectrum, the website is the culmination of three years of collaborative research, led by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The research and website development were financially supported by Autism CRC and Positive Partnerships.