In this long read, Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith explores how your school can proactively address, and look after, student mental health
Read the full article below or read on page 16 in our October magazine
In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic it is no secret that young people in our schools are facing even more significant mental health challenges than before. In a survey of young people undertaken by Mind 68% of students reported being absent from school due to mental health and anxiety.
Whilst this may be a well-known challenge facing schools, there remains a gap between knowing about the issue and being able to provide appropriate support; for example, just over three-in-five children (62%) said that they felt they had little or no support from their school with their mental health. Perhaps disturbingly, nearly half (48%) of young people attending school reported that they had been disciplined at school for behaviours which they felt were directly related to their mental health. In the most severe cases, young people reported being physically restrained and put in isolation away from their friends – issues which compounded their existing anxieties and suffering.
As set out in Section 78 of the Education Act (2002) and the Academies Act (2010), schools have statutory duties to ‘promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society, and prepare pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life’. So school leaders are, therefore, presented with a challenge to overcome; if we recognise that student mental health is an issue affecting the majority of our students, as well as a statutory requirement, and we hear what young people are saying to us – that they do not feel that they are receiving appropriate understanding or support – what can be done?
One school’s experience
Raynham Primary School, in Edmonton, reflected upon exactly this challenge. As Elizabeth Coffi, one of the teaching team at that time explains, “Staff reported that children’s anxiety relating to the challenges they faced at home often presented as being unable to focus for extended periods of time, being unable to regulate emotions, or seeking negative attention from peers and adults; for some children it was as simple as being unable to motivate themselves. These issues often became more pronounced after a weekend or holiday.”
Hannah Brown, another member of the teaching team at that time, continues, “Some pupils said, ‘I’ll never be able to do it’ or avoided doing something because they’d failed at it in the past. Feelings like this related to what these children believed about what made them ‘good’ at something – whether school work, sport, or even their ability to manage their emotions and behaviour. Some children tended to give up on challenging tasks easily, or avoid tasks they failed at before – believing that being ‘good’ at a particular activity was a fixed state, and was something they couldn’t control.”
Marva Rollins OBE, then headteacher of Raynham Primary School, engaged with the charity Success Club which was able to offer targeted support for children vulnerable to under-achievement. As Hannah explained, “We were conscious that there was a real need to teach the skills of self-regulation and self-control within our curriculum. Success Club supported us and children were explicitly taught how to collaborate, how to set goals and work towards them and, perhaps most importantly, the skill of mindfulness. Once a week there would be a one-hour session which always started with 10 minutes of guided mindfulness. Of course, to begin with, some children found this very difficult, but a few months into the programme it was those same children who were requesting ‘mindfulness time’. We therefore took the decision to include focused mindfulness every day in order to embed these skills into everyday life so that the children became well-practised.
“Sessions then covered collaborative working, where the children completed tasks as a team and were then asked to reflect on how they worked as a team, learning to give and receive feedback. In addition, there was big emphasis on teaching the children how to effectively set a goal, using daily, weekly and monthly targets to scaffold these, and strategies to hold themselves to account.”
Once the mindfulness work was embedded the school then moved on to focus on how our thoughts can have a physical and mental impact on each of us. “I vividly remember one of the early sessions where children were asked to write about a mistake that they had made recently, within a lesson, and to describe how that particular error made them feel,” recalls Elizabeth. “To my surprise, some children, shockingly, were expecting to fail, so the mistake confirmed their early negatives thoughts. This is despite the climate of ‘Yes we can’ which shaped the ethos of the school.
“Tony Dallas, who founded Success Club, had been guiding us through this process and asked them to crumple the paper and to imagine throwing it away. Following that, they un-crumpled the paper and each of the lines created represented the synaptic activity that happens in your brain when a mistake is made. Children were asked to colour each of the lines and stick this – now transformed – piece of paper into one of their maths or English books as a reminder to help them to use mistakes to strengthen your brain.”
Profound effect
The impact of this approach to mindfulness has a profound effect on children. Schools such as Raynham report evidence of overall attainment, behaviour and attendance improving, as well as children becoming more confident, more resilient when faced with challenges (in particular, with SATs tests), able to set their own personal and academic goals, manage stress and problem-solve. Perhaps poignantly, given the source of anxieties for some children, schools have also found evidence of children sharing their mindfulness exercises with families at home, increasing family wellbeing and parental engagement.
“These benefits impacted both children and staff; embedding a sustainable model for both children’s and staff wellbeing,” explains Marva. “Most of us working with children and young people would recognise that our own states of mind affect and define the mood of the classroom. It is important, therefore, to recognise that mindfulness plays a role in all of our lives – not just for our children and young people.”
As school leaders we set the tone. Our staff and students watch our responses, our stress regulation and reduction and our self-compassion. “Dealing with the mental health and wellbeing of the schools’ community is everyone’s responsibility,” Tony Dallas, former youth advisor to the office of the deputy prime minister, points out. “Many children, school staff and parents have pandemic stories to tell – they are all traumatised to some degree. The whole school needs time to heal together – which can be achieved by taking simple steps – creating mindful moments using shared techniques throughout the day, or using mindful timeout cards so that, if anyone is particularly anxious, they can have a three-minute breathing space.
“School staff and parents need to be given the proper support to create mindful classrooms and mindful homes. This fully-inclusive approach erases the stigma around mental health and supports those who are most vulnerable.”
This is the first school year since 2018-19 that is not being overshadowed by the logistics of a pandemic – there is an opportunity for us all to reset how we think about ourselves, those we learn and work with, and our aspirations for the year ahead. Building on the experiences and insights of those who have seen such huge positive impact of mindfulness practices on the lives of young people most at risk of underachieving, perhaps this presents us with an opportunity to consider:
Engaging with mindfulness resources ourselves (see links below).
Exploring ways in which mindfulness programmes can be brought into school for the benefit of students, staff and parents (see links to funded programmes below).
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