Life Skills GO Webinar Replay
SEF Alignment and School Planning for NSW Public Schools
Whole school wellbeing data using Life Skills GO in School Bytes or Sentral, and how it can support an authentic self-assessment against the NSW School Excellence Framework: the QDAI model, the four SEF wellbeing themes, and a short demo of the reporting behind it.
What Is the QDAI Model?
QDAI stands for Question, Data, Analysis and Implication: a disciplined way to work through a self-assessment against the School Excellence Framework, rather than reacting to a topic on instinct.
The question comes first, before any position is formed. Only once the Statement of Excellence is understood does the process move to relevant, reliable data, then to the facts that data supports, then to a position: working towards, delivering, sustaining and growing, or excelling.
Question
Understand what the Statement of Excellence is actually asking, before forming a view.
Data
Identify data that is relevant and reliable enough to answer that question.
Analysis
Extract the facts the data supports, then draw on facts, context and professional judgement to argue a position.
Implication
State what the school will continue, change, collect or connect as a result, and where appropriate, link it to other elements such as the SIP or SWPBS.
The Four SEF Wellbeing Themes, and What Life Skills GO Can Show You
The wellbeing element of the SEF is made up of four themes, each with its own Statement of Excellence. Below is each theme's question, and the kind of data Life Skills GO can help surface toward answering it.
Caring for Students
The question: staff are equipped and supported with the knowledge and skills to understand the diverse wellbeing needs of students, with embedded processes so all students can access guidance, support and assistance.
- A daily student check-in and student wellbeing journal, so students have a way to be heard on a regular basis rather than only when something visibly goes wrong
- Real-time teacher dashboards that can surface which students may need a check-in first
- Daily insights, weekly team meetings and an executive dashboard, so the process sits inside meetings the school already runs
A Planned Approach to Inclusion and Wellbeing
The question: an embedded, school-wide, data-informed approach where student voice and agency inform and refine practices that are responsive and proactive in meeting emerging needs.
- Patterns, trends and emerging insights surfaced daily, weekly and across each term, rather than a single once-a-term snapshot
- Regular, reliable student wellbeing data available at student, class, stage and whole-school level
- Student voice as an early indicator that may sit alongside behaviour and attendance, rather than waiting for those to change first
Individual Learning Needs
The question: a school-wide, collective responsibility for student learning shared among students, parents, carers and staff, with planning informed by robust and holistic information about wellbeing and learning needs.
- Readiness to learn tracked for every student, class, stage and the whole school
- An individual learner profile that maps regular emotional check-ins and can flag anomalies for a particular student
- A starting point for consultation with parents and carers that is grounded in what the student has actually reported, rather than assumption on either side
Behaviour
The question: positive and respectful relationships evident throughout the school community, promoting wellbeing and creating an optimal environment for learning, with maximised learning time a focus in every classroom.
- Conversations that start with student voice, which can help open a partnership with families rather than beginning from an incident report
- Real-time data that supports real-time problem solving and trialling different approaches to the learning environment
- Readiness to learn mapped across a school week, to help identify when learning time is working best
- Continue: giving students a regular channel for their emotion check-ins, and drawing on student data in weekly and executive meetings
- Change: how new teachers are inducted, and how check-ins are supported when classes are split or a casual teacher is in the room
- Collect: more information about the impact of strategies at an individual student level
- Connect: the data with the school plan and other elements, such as the SIP or SWPBS
See It in Action Inside School Bytes and Sentral
Life Skills GO sits inside the systems your school already uses, no new login, nothing added to your team's workload. The demo covered three things:
and
Whole-school, stage and class-level reporting
Inside the wellbeing module, at whatever level of detail a stage leader, wellbeing officer or executive team needs.
Weekly and term reports
Ready to bring straight into executive and stage meetings, without building a report from scratch.
Custom reports that combine attendance, behaviour and emotion data
One connected view, rather than three separate systems to piece together by hand.
5-minute demo snippet, pulled from the live session
↓ Watch the full replay for all four SEF wellbeing themes as well as this walkthrough.
Proven at Guildford West Public School
Nine years partnering with Life Skills GO, across K to 6 mainstream classes and four multi-categorical support classes.
Session Summary
The session in six points, for the stage meeting or executive team that could not attend live.
Let the Question Drive the Method
Suspend judgement on a theme before forming a position. Unpack the Statement of Excellence first, then look for data.
Use Data That Is Relevant and Reliable
Any data used in a self-assessment should meet both tests, not just be convenient or already on hand.
Extract the Facts Before You Argue a Position
Agree on what the data actually shows first, then draw on facts, context and professional judgement to write the implication.
Triangulate Wellbeing, Behaviour and Attendance
A connected view of all three can give a fuller picture than any one measure read on its own.
Distribute the Watching
Daily insights, weekly team meetings and an executive dashboard mean support does not have to rest on one person noticing everything.
It Is Not Just a Data Tool
The deeper value is teaching emotional literacy and self-regulation. The whole-school data is a byproduct of students who can better understand what they are experiencing.
Watch the Full Webinar Replay
The full session: all four SEF wellbeing themes, and the live demo of the reporting inside School Bytes and Sentral.
Full webinar replay: SEF Alignment and School Planning for NSW Public Schools
Want to See This at Your School?
If this session was useful for your next SEF self-assessment, our education wellbeing specialists are happy to walk through it with your team.