Mental health and wellbeing in schools
Prioritising mental health and wellbeing in primary schools Rhiannon Phillips-Bianco and Karren van Zoest recount their experiences This article consists of two parts, the first contributed by Karren van Zoest, Headteacher of Junior School Leidschenveen (a campus of The British School in the Netherlands), and the second by Rhiannon Phillips-Bianco, class teacher and Mental Health & Wellbeing Curriculum Leader. Karren van Zoest writes: As a new Headteacher in September 2016, I was keen to ensure our school continued to be ‘excellent in all areas’, as awarded during our school inspection earlier in the year. I was proud of how much we had achieved and it would have been easy to be complacent, seeing the school’s success through the narrowly focused lens of achieved ‘inspection criteria’. However, one key area concerned me: How ‘excellent’ are we if we look at our school environment from a mental health perspective? Mental health and wellbeing of students has become a subject of growing concern in education, reflecting some shocking world statistics including that at any moment 1 in every 10 children is suffering with a diagnosable mental health illness (www.mentalhealth.org. uk). That means two or three in every class. The answer to my question was that we could be doing much better. At a recent COBIS conference, I had the fortune to listen to Professor Tanya Byron who, having laid out the stark statistics on mental health, challenged school leaders in an uncomfortable moment of silent reflection, asking “so why aren’t you doing anything about it?” Good question. As Headteachers, we are lucky to be in the position to make changes that can have real impact. But it is also a responsibility to actually DO something.
In the last two years at Junior School Leidschenveen (JSL), we have done just that and started a deliberate drive to shift attitudes, break old habits and create an enabling environment rather than paying lip service with a one-off INSET session. We have challenged ourselves to make it ‘as easy for children in our school to ask for help for mental health, as it is to ask for a plaster for a cut knee’. We recognise that as educators we have a responsibility to break the stigma associated with mental health so that children can be prepared for their future armed with mental health life skills. I have become convinced during our school’s journey that this is not just about ‘fluffy stuff’ associated with wellbeing, but is actually a key component of ensuring children are prepared for the academic rigour they will be facing during their school lifetime so that they can reach their full potential. Our aim is to enable mental health and wellbeing awareness and strategies to become integral within the fibre of the school day, rather than bolt-on activities. From a whole-school perspective, we began to achieve this by: • Changing the timetable to break the conveyor belt experience, ensuring a calm start, middle and end to each day. This has given teachers more flexibility to manage the pace of the day and prioritise talking to students about their daily lives, alongside teaching lessons. • Prioritising positive self-esteem by developing a stronger sense of community through student leadership, and opportunities to feel pride in being a role model for others. This includes a Responsible Citizen award created to encourage feelings of selfworth in doing things for others in the community. • Introducing the ‘Daily K’ (kilometre) taken from the Scottish ‘Daily Mile’ initiative (www.thedailymile.co.uk/). This has so many benefits and has had high impact in children being able to refocus between lessons. • Changing teaching and learning lesson expectations to take account of good mental health practices, eg pace of lessons, brain breaks, quality time for reflection and finishing work, and enabling use of taught mental health strategies within lessons if needed. • Educating parents about breaking the stigma and how they can help at home.
Spring
Autumn |
| 2019
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