Mental health and wellbeing in schools
Ten ways to improve mental health in your primary classroom Former primary school teacher Becky Cranham has some ideas for improving mental health in primary children It’s widely known that children who feel nurtured and safe will not only learn better but feel better too, but the connection is sometimes easy to overlook as teachers grapple with the every-day demands of the primary school classroom. Here are some great ideas to guide teachers... 1. Get to know every child in your class Why not take some time each week to learn a new fact about each child? Give them a ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ card to fill in with something interesting about themselves, or as a space to share anything they are struggling with or worried about. Having one-to-one feedback on these (you could write a quick response on the back of the card and leave it in their tray, or take a child aside if necessary), or sharing a quick “Hey, I didn’t know you love ostriches – they’re my favourite animal too!” moment with a child, can make them feel really valued and supported. 2. Encourage every child to have a voice Do you find it’s always the same children putting their hands up to answer a question? Use Flip Sticks to keep track of who you’ve asked a question, and to encourage the whole class to take part in discussions. Another good method is to use ‘Talk for Me Buddies’ – a child discusses a question or problem with a partner who then feeds back what the first child has said to the rest of the class, and vice versa. This is great for children who want to share their ideas with the class but who
don’t yet have the confidence to voice their own thoughts in a large group. 3. Be playful and have fun Play fosters creativity, collaboration and problem solving, all of which are important for good mental health. Make sure there is time in the timetable for children to play, whether it’s a Maths game, a role-play activity or a team-building game to foster class relationships. 4. Feelings and emotions: name it to tame it This gives children and adults the language to describe how they are feeling. In the words of US child psychiatrist Dr Dan Siegel: ‘Name it to tame it’. Children need to be able to identify the emotions they are feeling in order to understand how to deal with what they are feeling. Display an Emotions Poster in the classroom and encourage children to refer to it throughout the day, or give them each an individual feelings monitor to encourage them to identify when they feel different emotions, and thereby know how to deal with them. 5. Take a mood register to check in with the feelings in the room We recently asked some of our Facebook followers what they do to take the register. One response that we absolutely loved was to do a mood register. This involved children giving a number from 1 to 10 when answering their name in the register to show how they were feeling that day. The teacher can then follow-up with any low-scoring children later in the day for a private chat, and other children can be aware of how their peers are feeling, giving them the chance to offer encouragement and support. This is what this teacher said about how it was working in her classroom: “It’s amazing how, when you make talking about feelings and emotions the ‘norm’, children feel totally safe and natural expressing how they feel.” 6. Create an atmosphere where all feelings are allowed Give feelings an appropriate outlet. Put boundaries in place around behaviours to keep everyone safe and develop strategies to help reinforce those boundaries. For example, let children know that they are allowed to feel happy, angry,
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Autumn |
| 2019
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