Mitigating mental illness in education

Wellbeing at Westminster School

Every pupil’s voice is important, and we always want to hear directly from them how we can make school life even better, to ultimately help us make each individual’s experience the best it can be. At Westminster School, we hold regular pupil voice surveys, which have told us that pupils in public exam years would like to understand more about mental health and how they might best navigate the times in which they will experience greater pressure. With that in mind, we have developed our RSHE and wellbeing curriculum to help empower pupils with strategies to mitigate stresses caused by the anticipation of exams.

All Westminster pupils receive weekly RSHE and wellbeing lessons, with themes of mental health revisited on several occasions throughout their time with us. Our aim is to make these lessons as interactive, enjoyable and interesting as possible and to encourage pupils to consider and learn about their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those around them. As just one example, Year 11 GCSE pupils have lessons dedicated to being able to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy coping strategies to promote emotional wellbeing, signposting them towards extra support when needed, including our in-house counselling team. We also have lessons dedicated to understanding how long-term memory and retrieval might be linked, helping pupils to identify helpful learning techniques and apply theories of learning to create plans and guides for future revision and studying.

Through exploring how to integrate healthy day-to-day routines, looking at the intrinsic link between physical health and wellbeing with a deep dive into the impacts that poor sleep can have on memory and our ability to focus, we hope to help pupils to find ways to manage the more demanding periods of their school life. Pupils are encouraged to keep a food diary for a week to calculate their sugar intake, leading to collaborative pupil-led discussions on the science underpinning the effects food can have on our emotions. By looking to promote good habits from when pupils join the school in Year 9 or in Year 12, and encouraging an open dialogue, we hope that they will build a steady base on which to lean on during more difficult times, which for many of our pupils is around exam time.

For A Level pupils, lessons on managing stress fall a few weeks before examinations, helping them to develop problem-solving techniques, so that they can take ownership of their responses to stress and react to challenges in a positive and helpful way. Pupils evaluate different mental health theories, exploring elements of positive psychology to identify and challenge any limiting beliefs that they hold about themselves, acknowledging the importance of a growth mindset over a fixed mindset, and comparing this school of thought to how Stoic Principles can be applied to overcome life’s challenges.

MISS EMMA BLAKEMORE, Teacher of Geography and Head of Wellbeing

www.westminster.org.uk

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