The Whole Child approach by ASCD says that a successful student isn't just someone who does well on tests. It's someone who knows things, is emotionally and physically healthy, cares about the community, likes the arts, is ready to work, and can take care of themselves economically. It's about being prepared for life beyond just school.

The ASCD Whole Child approach has five important ideas:

• Healthy: Every student should start school healthy and learn how to live a healthy lifestyle.
• Safe: Students should learn in a place that is safe, both physically and emotionally, for them and the adults.
• Engaged: Students should be actively involved in learning and connected to their school and the larger community.
• Supported: Every student should get personalized learning and support from qualified and caring adults.
• Challenged: Students should face academic challenges and be ready for success in college, further studies, employment, and participation in the global community.

An overview of the Whole Child Approach.

Making the case for educating the whole child - a short document that looks at each of the five tenets and provides case studies from schools in the US.

Whole Child for the Whole World - contains helpful indicators of what to look for against each of the five tenets - a useful self-audit tool.

Action Plan Guide: a step-by-step process of integrating the five Whole Child Tenets into the culture, curriculum, and community of your school.

Educating the Whole Child draws on lessons from the science of learning and development to underline the importance of social and emotional wellbeing, the value of relationships, and the importance of taking on board individual learner variability. New knowledge about human development from neuroscience and the sciences of learning and development demonstrates that effective learning depends on secure attachments; affirming relationships; rich, hands-on learning experiences; and explicit integration of social, emotional, and academic skills. A positive school environment supports students’ growth across all the developmental pathways—physical, psychological, cognitive, social, and emotional—while it reduces stress and anxiety that create biological impediments to learning. Such an environment takes a “whole child” approach to education, seeking to address the distinctive strengths, needs, and interests of students as they engage in learning. Given that emotions and relationships strongly influence learning—and that these are the byproducts of how students are treated at school, as well as at home and in their communities—a positive school climate is at the core of a successful educational experience. School climate creates the physiological and psychological conditions for productive learning. Without secure relationships and supports for development, student engagement and learning are undermined.

Developing Well-Being Focused Education Ecosystems: Towards One Earth, One Family, One Future IF20 Education Policy Brief with recommendations for practical action by G20 leaders.The Developing Well-Being Focused Education Ecosystems report specifically addressed the development of wellbeing-focused education ecosystems and included case studies from various parts of the world. It provides the following five practical recommendations:

• Create dedicated curriculum spaces for whole-person learning - cultivating cognitive, social, emotional, ethical, creative and spiritual qualities.
• Shift towards collaborative approaches to educational evaluation - i.e. actively move away from standardised high stakes testing towards relational, learner-focused, and collaborative alternatives.
• Embed a well-being sensitive and relational orientation to teaching - moving beyond traditional teacher-centric pedagogy towards relational, dialogic, human-centered practice.
• Provide educators with professional development and well-being opportunities - to support whole person learning the teacher acts as facilitator / mentor.
• Develop inclusive multi-sectional educational ecosystems.