by Dr. Kathy Weston 4

numbers, email addresses or even the names of staff members who could offer support. All school staff should also be familiar with pathways to both internal and specialist support (Bignardi, et al., 2021). In terms of auditing how well supported pupils feel, schools should remember that young people can and should play a leading role in this process. They can also provide useful insights into potential barriers to accessing support among their peers. Longer term, peer-led mental health initiatives can increase perception of self-efficacy and autonomy along pupils, both of which relate strongly to the idea of resilience (Dray et al., 2017). Stay alert to post-Covid ‘red flags‘

At the time of writing, there are two emerging issues related to children and young people’s mental health that are gaining researchers’ attention and which schools should stay alert to. The first is a rise in eating disorders, which appeared to coincide with the return to school in Autumn 2020. Particular stressors associated with the pandemic conflated to form what one expert describes as a ‘perfect storm’. These stressors included high levels of social anxiety, isolation, the normalisation of restrictive eating in family life, a fear of obesity, a lack of peer support, and concomitant low motivation and mood (Nicholls, 2021).

An additional issue that has been observed since January, 2021, is a surge of 'severe tics and tic-like attacks', particularly in teenage girls (Heyman, et al., 2021). The same picture has emerged internationally (ACAMH, 2021).

If you are wondering about next steps, wish to learn more, and be able to access resources that can meaningfully address some of issues outlined above, look no further than <www.tooledupeducation.com>.

From Autumn 2021, your school community will be able to access hundreds of resources designed to empower parents, carers, and educators to apply research-informed solutions in everyday life.

‘Tooled Up’ resources relevant to this article are: a resource sheet on ‘tics’, interviews with experts in adolescent mental health, Professor Shirley Reynolds and Dr Dasha Nicholls (with accompanying notes), resources for pupils (relating to transition, wellbeing, mental toughness, resilience and managing anxiety).

If you have any questions please contact: <kathy@tooledupeducation.com>.

Resources to support your school community

BIO Dr. Kathy Weston is the founder of ‘Tooled Up Education’, a digital library of evidence-based resources on parenting, family life and education. She is a criminologist, holds a Masters and Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge and worked for many years as an education researcher within Higher Education. She is the co-author of Engaging Parents (Bloomsbury, 2018; 2020) and a sought-after keynote speaker. See: <www.drkathyweston.com>.

Digital Wellbeing at Berkhamsted School

Overview

This project aimed to tackle the challenge of improving digital wellbeing of students at Berkhamsted School. It explored the creation of strategic and cultural change to a new approach that is both pro-technology and pro-boundaries.

Introduction

In the past decade, there has been an enormous change in how we view the relationships young people have with technology. The rising power of the smartphone, the growth of ubiquitous, high-speed wi-fi internet connections, the power and influence of social media, and the growing acceptance that educational technology has a valid and purposeful role to play in teaching and learning, have all created a shift in the educational landscape in which schools operate and families live. This article will explore how I have led changes at Berkhamsted to support the wellbeing of pupils and families as they navigate digital life.

My hypothesis

Wellbeing at Berkhamsted School will be improved through the articulation and adoption of clear, consistent structures, values, and learning opportunities which are both proboundaries and pro-technology.

For the purposes of my project, I was very open to how wellbeing could be improved. Having never undertaken a culture-shifting piece of work like this before, I was not sure how much impact my interventions would have. I was keen to see if my work could have a tangible positive effect in the following areas during the timespan of the project:

1. Changes in attitudes and behaviour

1.1. Improved consistency and certainty about behaviour management expectations for the use of devices, with a shared language for the community to use. Indirectly, I hoped that this would contribute to a reduction in parental complaints and concerns about the use of mobile phones. 1.2. Increased evidence of a more warm, friendly community atmosphere and more convivial social interactions, especially outside the classroom (e.g. in dining rooms, outside spaces and house rooms). 1.3. Growing confidence and empowerment in how adults interact with children and young people with technology; narrowing the generational gap.

2. Changes in culture and atmosphere in school

2.1. Improved civility of human behaviours (from both adults and young people), such as giving full attention and eye contact when someone is speaking, awareness of others in physical space, being mentally present rather than distracted by devices

and notifications. 2.2. Wellbeing-informed decision-making around educational technology and the use of devices for learning.

I also hope that the project will set other longerterm positive shifts in motion, especially improved understanding about digital wellbeing through ongoing INSET and increased community learning opportunities for parents so that we might better bridge the gap between parenting and schooling when it comes to pastoral issues which manifest online. I believe that an increased awareness of digital wellbeing in the parents of younger children may challenge the trend that younger and younger children seemed to be creating habits which are not developmentally or socially helpful.

Process

Step 1: Listen, gather information, and observe

I wanted to gain a deep and broad understanding of the ‘ground truth’ in my own School and in the wider community. I cast my net wide: I attended several SMT meetings where digital wellbeing was on the agenda, I talked individually with Senior Managers and pastoral leaders, and observed the behaviours of students around the sites. I gathered information about the parental complaints and concerns that had come in about mobile phones, and listened to the feedback from those who run tours for prospective parents, who reported that they were hearing repeated concern about these issues and how the School handles them.

Step 2 : Explore the wider context

I sent out some questions to benchmark practice against other schools of a similar size and standing. I wanted to establish how those schools were dealing with these challenges, and what was working well in similar contexts to ours across a range of approaches to mobile phone policies and practices, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) provision or one-to-one programmes. The results of this investigation did not yield any particular trends: every school was doing something different and suitable to its own context. However, it was important to me to build credibility and realism into my planning process, so that critical voices using gossip and snippets of truth could be meaningfully challenged.

Step 3: Research and reading

I read and researched extensively across the academic literature and policy recommendations in the areas around digital wellbeing at an international scale, in order to gather in the highest quality thinking and formulate a plan which was not a knee-jerk reaction or a panicked response to pressure. I was grateful to the Vice Principal at the time, who supported me in this by informing concerned parents that we were working on these issues and they could expect updates to our policies when we were ready to share them. This took courage in a climate where media volume on schools banning devices was high.

Step 4: Proposal creation

I put together a proposal for a new Digital Wellbeing Framework (DWF). It represented the first steps in developing new policy and practice for the use of mobile devices in School within a framework of digital wellbeing and teaching and learning. It aimed to resist the draw of headline-grabbing moral panic and anti-technology backward steps, and take a measured and reasoned approach to balancing the benefits of mobile technology with the challenges, based upon the latest research reports and findings.

In this document, I used a powerful metaphor as a vehicle for helping stakeholders to understand the changes at hand, borrowed from the original Byron Review in 2008: 'Children and young people need to be empowered to keep themselves safe - this isn't just about a top-down approach. Children will be children - pushing boundaries and taking risks. At a public swimming pool we have gates, put up signs, have lifeguards and shallow ends, but we also teach children how to swim' (Byron, 2008, 2).

I wanted to clarify that I felt schools and parents should share responsibility for educating and safeguarding their children online, and how we could draw those lines more effectively. If schools ban technology they cannot control, they are pushing the problems onto parents. If parents just expect that the school will solve every worry, that is not workable or reasonable.

Step 5: Data collection I decided on a mixed methodology approach which would include quantitative and qualitative data, gathered information from a range of qualitative and quantitative sources, including staff questionnaires, observations, student surveys, and benchmarking against other similar schools.

Findings

In my reading of the research, my exploration of the data from my own school and my study of anecdotal information from other schools, three key themes developed in the Digital Wellbeing Framework. I was very clear in my own mind that we would not jump on the media-fuelled ‘moral panic’ bandwagon and ban all mobile devices, as this demonised technology and made it look like we were afraid of it. Given how many teachers rely on mobile technology for their own professional and