We Love Student Work!

With the 2022-2023 School Year in its kick-off months, Thrively Teachers and Students have been engaging deeply in the work of Strengths! As a Learner-Centered platform, committed to advocating for all learners to be known, seen, and valued by their strengths, Thrively has partnered with Spring Valley Academy Middle School of La Mesa Spring Valley Schools in San Diego, to celebrate the strengths of their students. With strategic leadership from principal Lauren Basteyns, all staff and students have taken the Thrively Strengths Assessment to learn more about themselves as individuals and to build a collective, assets-based culture at their school site. 

With the Thrively Strengths Assessment complete and positive strength profiles reading, “You are a truly creative and innovative mind,” and “You are a self-starter with big goals for yourself,” Spring Valley Academy Middle School is beginning to engage in phase 2 of their implementation plan with Thrively. Once a week, all Elective classes are committing time and brain power to learning, reflecting, and sharing about their strengths. Phase 2 is a deeper dive into discovering your strengths and learning why your strengths matter through a specialized facilitation guide that highlights a combination of Thrively lessons and offline culture building activities, like a User Guide and Personalized Strengths Posters. The amazing elective teachers at SVA, including Bernadete Filippone @msbfili, have been implementing this meaningful work and going above and beyond to bring the learning and student strengths to life. Check out these Student Strengths posters! What would your strength poster look like?

What to do on Testing day?

The leadership in the Sweetwater Union School District took a proactive approach when asking the question, “What do we do with our 9th and 12th graders while our 10th and 11th graders are taking the PSAT test?” The team quickly came to the conclusion that engaging students in structured activities that could be managed by any staff member due to the flexing of student schedules was the obvious solution. Yet, the question remained, what were the students to do? The Sweetwater District, with over 4 years of partnership with Thrively, knew they could co-design a solution that would work across multiple high schools.

On the day of the PSAT test, the 9th and 12th grade students engaged in different activities in Thrively with while they reflected on the following:

• Who am I?
• Where am I going?
• How do I get there?

The 9th graders found themselves taking the strength assessment and reflecting on their top 3 strengths. The 12th grades engaged in the Thrively Interest Profiler (RIASEC) and learned more about career pathways. A powerful reflection at the end saw the students completing the journal reflection prompt, “What I wish my teacher knew . . .” How would your students answer the question? Thrively is here to help.

Staff Strengths in Poway Unified

Do you know the strengths of your staff? The time is now to create cognitively diverse strength teams. When staff know themselves and are known, valued and engaged by their strengths, you are well on your way to a thriving campus. Creating a culture of care begins with caring for those in our care. School leaders in Poway Unified activate both online and offline activities in Thrively to promote positive staff identity. It’s no longer enough to have students reflect and share, “What I wish my teacher knew.” It’s time to have our teaching staff share, “What I wish my administrators knew . . .”

The next time you jump into a conversation, lead with what is strong versus wrong. Thrively is here to help.