While Schools Wait For Mental Health Funding, Many Are Discovering Untapped Resources – Including The Students Themselves
Getting the right stuff to build resilience
- by Jenny Hulme
It is little wonder that we get nervous about the subject of mental health in schools. With figures still on the rise, funding remaining scarce, and the pressure on pupils greater than ever, teachers say they feel deskilled, and anxious about intervening.
According to Young Minds, some 90% of school leaders have reported an increase in the number of students experiencing stress and anxiety in the last five years, and the charity’s training and consultancy manager Hannah Kinsey says teachers feel they have to be experts to do something about it: “There can be a sense of panic that comes from dealing with the crisis end of the spectrum.”
But as one teacher I spoke to recently observed, we’d be pretty scared if we were being asked to diagnose chest infections or fix arms broken on the playing field. We’re just not qualified.
Prevention, not cure
And this is largely the problem. So important is this issue, that teachers can sometimes be left feeling that their job is to treat mental illness rather than promote good mental health. And in the pressure of their day, with its constant firefighting, they may not realise how they could actually be building resilience and self worth – the stuff that genuinely helps pupils cope with challenges life throws at them, and gives them the confidence to talk about their feelings when things get tough.
“The best solutions aren’t necessarily the complicated ones,” explains Hannah. “It’s about promoting emotional wellbeing in the same way schools promote physical wellbeing. And it’s not rocket science, either. Ann Masten talks about ‘ordinary magic’ in her book on resilience (Guildford Press) and that comes from small but powerful policies that involve the whole school.” What Hannah and the team at Young Minds are doing is showing teachers that a lot of what they already practise – as they connect with students, build trust and create spaces for them to talk with staff and with each other – is building resilience. “They are seeing that actually they need to recognise, ring fence and do more of it,” says Hannah.
3 simple starting points for your school…
1. Create mentors In many schools friendships are still seen as accidental and beyond the teachers’ control. Peer mentoring programmes challenge that view. A group of primary schools in East Sussex, for example, signed up to a wellbeing programme and trained their year 6s to be peer mentors. It was beautifully simple, and led to pairs of students waiting at the gate for the reluctant pupil who struggles to come in, meeting their mentee at break to read or chat, or taking it in turns to surf the playground to help children sort out squabbles or to invite them into a game when they have no one to play with.
At another school – Neston High School on the Wirral – the staff saw dozens of year 7s and 8s soar up the attainment ladder as a result of a mentoring scheme, introduced when they realised some children weren’t doing well in the classroom because they were struggling socially. Now, up to 40 year sevens in this large comprehensive are assigned mentors for two years. “I think mentoring recognises that friendship is often the most important thing in a young person’s life,” says assistant head Kirsty Cunningham. “Being valued by a peer group can feel as important as being part of a family – more important sometimes, and it has a positive impact on their feelings of self worth, and so their ability to learn.”
The great thing about mentoring like this, say teachers who’ve tried it, is that it doesn’t just build resilience and change the lives of the cohort of students it’s designed to help, but enriches the lives and promotes the emotional wellbeing of those children doing the mentoring as they learn more about others (their differences, disabilities, gifts and more). And this creates a more equitable school culture as a result. 2. Create equality It’s this equitable school culture that is a priority for the anti-bullying charity Kidscape. It’s one of the first things they ask teachers to think about when looking at their anti-bullying policy.
“Where bullying is a problem we too often we hear about a culture of leaders and followers, populars and unpopulars,” says director of services Peter Bradley. “It’s that imbalance which allows bullying to thrive and children to become isolated.” Teachers who work with Kidscape on their anti-bullying policy often come to recognise that children who seem ‘popular’ can cross the line and become manipulative and controlling, demanding loyalty from their friends who become bystanders to bullying. “We’re not doing any of those children any favours by ignoring that,” observes Peter. “Schools have, we hope, now shelved any lingering belief that being treated badly by your peer toughens you up for the ‘real world’. Most know bullying doesn’t serve any useful purpose at all. Children build resilience by learning empathy and caring for each other.”
3. Create connections Hannah at Young Minds talks to schools about the connections between staff and pupils – and that includes everyone from receptionists to lunchtime staff to teachers, and every different kind of interaction in the day. “For example if a looked after child arrives late every day because they’re travelling in from out of area, having a receptionist welcome them rather than simply rush them into class can make such a difference to how that child feels,” Hannah points out. It’s hard to quantify the value of these kind of small, positive daily interactions, but SLTs who promote them across the school say it not only reduces isolation and anxieties but by building trust encourages pupils to open up and talk earlier and more effectively, often in a way they may find difficult (and stigmatising) if placed across the table in class and asked ‘how they feel’ after they’ve hit a low point. At Lyng Hall Comprehensive in Coventry, for example, headteacher Paul Green weaves this kind of magic via a whole raft of initiatives. ‘We aim to ensure every member of staff has a special connection with students, and every student knows there is a particular person looking out for them,” he states.
At lunchtime for example, staff mix with students instead of retreating to the staff room. In the canteen teachers are dotted around the tables with groups of pupils, sharing a joke or with heads down in conversations over sandwiches, while those staff with a more supervisory role have walkie-talkies, picking up messages from other lunchtime staff about kids who’ve come unstuck and may need a helping hand when they come into lunch.
Helpful websites
youngminds.org.uk kidscape.org.uk
Jenny Hulme has collected stories about schools promoting wellbeing and building resilience in The School of Wellbeing and How to Create Kind Schools.
