Inspiration from ACE Interrupters in Great Britain
Lindsey Watkins – learning about caring Head teacher, Millbrook Primary School, Wales Lindsey Watkins is a force of nature, a plate-spinner extraordinaire. During 12 years as head teacher at Millbrook Primary School, she has taken her teachers, pupils and parents on a journey to improve wellbeing and resilience. Not that she would cast herself in a starring role – she sees Millbrook’s happy progression as the product of partnership. “In order for any of us to achieve our goals, be it a doctor or a nurse meeting the medical needs of their patient, they need to look beyond that patient and work in partnership with the other agencies that may be supporting that person or their family members, and that’s what we’ve done in school.” Millbrook Primary School, in Newport, south Wales, was formed in 2007 from the amalgamation of an infant and junior school. Lindsey was brought in as the new head with her conviction that only happy children are in a position to learn. “It was quite a different place then – there was tangibly in the air a need for care. I had quite a few behaviour issues within the school – I was needing to exclude, attendance was low, parental engagement was poor, drug-runners were hiding their stash behind the backs of school. You name every sort of problem you come across, and we probably experienced it.” Lindsey is warm and bubbly but she plotted Millbrook’s “… It was about developing that regeneration with steely determination, taking the initiative basic innate care into knowledge to apply for grants and bring in consultants to train her staff. and understanding and what the impact of trauma can be …” Her focus was on nurturing the children and mitigating the effects of any trauma or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) suffered by her pupils. “Everybody [on my team] genuinely cares about children – it’s a very special place – but for us it was about starting to develop that basic innate care into knowledge and understanding and what the impact of trauma can be.” Most of Millbrook’s 200-odd pupils live in a housing estate close to the school, according to its 2016 report by Estyn, the Welsh education inspectorate. About 35% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is above the national average of 19%. On joining the school, Lindsey knew she would need to think differently if she was to restore morale. “My job is to educate children and to have them achieve their full potential but in order to do that they have to be in the right place, in terms of their wellbeing,” she says. “That has always been a belief of mine I guess, because of my own upbringing, my own journey.” She describes herself as coming from a humble background. “Very loving family but not a family that had a lot of money. You know – father had two jobs, but we always had a roof over our heads, my mother was making my clothes.” Lindsey also experienced one or two ACEs herself, though she prefers not to go into detail. The subtext is that her resilience won out. Whatever she learnt during her own early years has informed her work to transform Millbrook into a happy environment. Lindsey’s first step in 2009 was to land a professional-learning place on a grant-funded trip to New York. The purpose of the visit was to look at how schools in the Bronx, Washington Heights 24
