Well-being and the education of the whole child
A background paper by the OECD and Education International for the Pre-Summit Seminar at the International Summit on the Teaching Profession 2022
Published in April 2021 by the OECD and Education International, the Ten Principles for Effective and Equitable Educational Recovery (hereinafter Principles) were intended to facilitate the collaboration of education authorities and the teaching profession, and their organisations, navigate the health crisis effectively and reshape education systems after the pandemic. The Principles emphasised that learning and teaching were not just a transactional service but a relational and social experience.
The Principles have been distributed widely and provided background for the US-hosted International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) in 2021.The main themes of ISTP 2021 focussed on the development of education of the whole child and its relationship to achieving equity, teacher professionalism and well-being. The Summit recognised that what was needed was intentional collaboration at system level to achieve this goal. This position paper seeks to elaborate on these themes. It explores the connection between student and teacher well-being and their relationship with schools as communities. It summarises current OECD and Education International perspectives. They complement each other in many aspects and often use a mutual evidence base. Both the 2021 ISTP and the Principles have contributed to a new and more concerted focus on these areas in many education jurisdictions and have fed into this paper.
The paper opens with summaries of evidence and perspectives from the OECD and Education International. It then identifies within the Principles proposals relevant to the issues of education for the whole Child, student and teacher well-being. The paper concludes with a set of questions which are intended to carry on forward discussion on this vital area of learning.
