The WOW Factor: Sydney Distance Education High School

Words: Rede Carney (Teacher at Sydney Distance Education High School)

Rede Carney has been a teacher at Sydney Distance Education High School for over 12 years now. If you’re not familiar with the school, they deliver education programs to students whose special circumstances prevent them from attending regular schooling. This includes a variety of students including those with medical conditions, significant support needs or those with mental health conditions.

Part of Rede’s role within the school is to coordinate different excursions throughout the year, and when he heard about the work that Waves of Wellness does, he knew it would be the perfect fit.

“I heard about WOW through one of the teachers’ husbands who did the program and said it would be great for the students, particularly with the high percentage of mental health conditions in the school.”

“I’ve always been a surfer and love the beach, and appreciate how therapeutic it can be, so what you do at WOW with the programs really resonated with me.”

Waves of Wellness has been partnering with The Sydney Distance Education for three years now. He admits that he was nervous about the logistics of organising something that involved participation every week for 8 weeks.

“We’d never tried an excursion that would be weekly, as it can be difficult with students being so spread apart in terms of location, so when we tried it I was really nervous, but even from the first year, it was successful with maintaining the group attendance. As long as they turned up for the first session, they kept coming back. And it’s been the same for the last three years.”

The program is becoming increasingly popular with students, and their eagerness to take part is clear when Rede mentioned that after sending the invitation to a database of 1,000 students, the spots were grabbed within less than an hour.

Despite the success of the program, there are still some challenges, as is often the case when dealing with unique individuals with complex needs.

“We had 8 students who attended every week and every student has complex cases of diagnoses. They’re super anxious, they don’t know the other students because they’re at home. They rarely leave the house, so this is massive for them to even leave the house once a week. The really big challenge is just to get them there on that first week.”

“We do a lot of web lessons and online learning, but this really helped make us all feel we are on the same level. Not student and facilitator. I hadn’t met many of the students, so the benefits of having it at the beach means we are all there together on the same level, and we have a few teachers taking part too.”

Rede also discussed the many positive impacts that the program has had on participants including increased participation both in school and in friendships formed.

“We have a learning hub at school, so students can attend once a week. A lot of students were coming into that more regularly. Just that change in confidence, whether it was attending more online sessions for school, or coming in, or just starting the gym, they were really good with sharing and being open.”

“The children developed connections and friendships outside of the program too, which is awesome. I hate to say it but a lot of them wouldn’t have that many friends, maybe some online friends. Because they’ve been through a lot of schools they typically don’t hang on to friendships from face-to-face learning. So they’re pretty isolated kids. Some of them were in year 12 and went to the year 12 formal, and knew each other which was nice, some were catching the train home from Bondi together because they were on the same train line, they got each other’s numbers and things like that, it was super sweet.”

“Because they’ve gone through so much trauma, they are quite in touch with their emotions and how to express that, so they seem very mature. I think they built on those skills of how to express themselves. It definitely became normalised to talk about the bad side of our feelings and seek help. I think talking about the strategies to help was useful because the students were sharing with each other and learning from each other rather than being told by a psychologist. Because all of them have anxiety, depression, autism, and panic disorders, they were similar in certain ways and I think learning from each other about how they cope and what they do to get through the days to navigate that was really helpful for them.”

Rede remarked that the most surprising thing about the WOW program is that “it keeps getting better and better”, he went on to say that “Simon was amazing I think he’s really great, and Jo, and I think because we teachers are willing to open up too and talk about our lives and say how we don’t have it all together, we were pretty open and a few teachers had personal things going on and shared that. So I think it was really great to open up and have that 1-hour chat on the beach first. And it was so supportive because we had 4 teachers plus your staff, so we basically had 1 to 1 student ratio so we could really build that connection with the students in the water as well. So yes it just keeps getting better, sometimes I think I was having the most fun out there.”

“It’s definitely something they’re going to remember for their lives I think, and they appreciated it so much. The change in confidence you can definitely see, some of the kids with anxiety were kind of sunken, head down at the start, whereas they have a bit more pride now and confidence.”

Rede was kind enough to offer this advice to anyone thinking about joining a WOW therapy program “You might be a bit scared about joining the program, because you might not know the other participants who will be taking part, or you might be scared of the water, but give it a go.”

One of our teachers had a big fear of sharks and he got in each week and gave it a go, and had a good time. So remember you can do it and you’ll get so much out of it.

“On a personal level, sharing amongst others and helping other people was nice too, so you get this really good feeling doing the program. And learning a new skill like surfing is amazing,. for me, it meant that I could get in the water once a week, and it was locked in for that time schedule. I’ve got two kids and I work full time and time gets away sometimes, so to have that time locked in was great, and it kind of got the habit back for me. And some students might be the same, unable to find the time, or with excuses coming up.”

“So I would just say Sign up and see where it takes you.”

Rede hopes that one day all schools will be able to offer the Waves of Wellness program

“It’s really well run, the staff are so friendly and supportive, they know exactly what to say. I don’t think it could be better run to be honest, at all. School costs can be a thing, it is a big cost so getting funding is a huge thing, I think all schools should be able to offer this as it is such a great program that fits in so well with our kids for the mental health aspect, but I think would be good for all kids.”

If you are a teacher and you think that Waves of Wellness could help you create a meaningful and therapeutic excursion for your children, drop us an email at info@foundationwow.org.au