Health & Wellness

What is Health & Wellness at Green Vale?

At the Board of Trustees meeting prior to the start of this past school year, Headmaster Stephen Watters revisited an important topic for Green Vale --- the emerging consensus among educators on the  essential roles physical fitness and emotional well-being play in a child’s ability to learn and make healthy choices in life. From this discussion, Board President Allen Parker noted the importance of increased efforts with health & wellness programs at Green Vale. 

Mr. Parker asked Dr. Elisa Muran, a Green Vale parent and Trustee, to head a new sub-committee of the Faculty & Academic Affairs Committee and work closely with Mr. Watters in promoting health & wellness at Green Vale.

As a result, long-time faculty member Madeline O’Keefe was asked to serve as Green Vale’s new Health & Wellness Director and given the responsibility of creating a structured health and wellness program that could be documented as a discrete subject area. Health and Wellness at Green Vale includes physical health and nutrition as well as social and emotional learning, with a focus on character development, safety and prevention and dedication to the environment (sustainability). While physical education is a very visible and well established component of a Green Vale education, ongoing social and emotional learning had been less well documented. Mrs. O’Keefe’s goal this year, to establish life skills lessons focused on social and emotional core competencies, has helped give clarity and definition to this increasingly important area.

Working with teachers to identify age appropriate subjects that are important to students, Mrs. O’Keefe noted that Green Vale’s health and wellness program is designed to make a difference in children’s lives --- so that they can make a difference in their world. Leadership skills, nutrition, personal hygiene, personal safety, social skills, conflict and resolution, peer pressure, bully harassment and alcohol/drug abuse prevention are some of the topics identified.

Did these efforts this year make a difference? Consider the ‘bucketfillers’ from Pre-Kindergarten. After reading “Have you Filled a Bucket Today?” at the start of the year,  Pre-K students took the story to heart and followed its principles by filling a personal bucket with accomplishments, good deeds, caring words and cooperation --- for the entire school year. Their community service projects, including Coins for Life to support the Bone Marrow Foundation, helped fill their buckets. If a student was unkind or irresponsible their bucket was emptied. PK teachers were pleased to see the enthusiasm, learning and improved behavior as a result of this year-long interactive lesson.

Third grade lessons focused on safety, friendship and responsibility. Miss Leonard’s students focused on personal dependability by doing chores at home all year long. Money earned for their work was saved until they were able to purchase toys and books for the pediatric center at Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center, seen  in photo above with gifts and packing boxes.

Fourth and fifth grade students discussed feelings, bullying, peer pressure and leadership. The fifth grade participated in a leadership program aboard the USS Intrepid (above) in June. Ninth grade took the lead on Green Vale’s four pillars of character education – respect, responsibility,
caring and citizenship – when the Student Council led a school-wide art contest to sell reusable eco-bags or when their Spanish class visited a local nursing home on several occasions to teach senior citizens Spanish. 

Whether it was disease prevention in kindergarten, managing anger in second grade, demonstrating personal safety strategies in sixth, understanding internet behavior in seventh or honing public speaking skills in eighth, Green Vale is committed to teaching crucial life skills necessary for our children to face an ever-changing world with ever present challenges.

-- Summer 2009 issue of The Voice