EDUCAT ION
“As today’s pupils start to contemplate a very different future from their parents, lessons in well-being can help prepare the way”
emergency) are sent in the evenings or at weekends. We even have an email- free period during the week – Tuesday morning, which we call Talk Tuesday – that encourages staff to talk to each other rather than email,” says Nigel Helliwell. Culford encourages staff to make the most of its stunning grounds (the head, a runner, sets an excellent example). The Leys and St Christopher are among the schools to offer yoga sessions to staff to help them manage stress. Other activities range from mindfulness sessions to an inset day themed around well-being. With concerns surrounding children’s mental health continuing to increase, the emphasis on well-being is likely to become even more important in the months to come. While league tables don’t yet measure children’s resilience and ability to bounce back from a setback, it could yet happen, with one charity
campaigning for well-being to become part of the inspection process, for better assessment tools to be developed and for well-being to feature in teacher training. For that to happen, it’s useful to be able to measure the well-being initiatives schools are putting in place. At The Leys School, the first well-being survey in a five-year study starts in the summer term, enabling the school to see how much of a difference its well-being programme is making. Parents at St Faith’s, meanwhile, say the happiness of the children is a major reason for choosing the school in the first place. Pupils also take an annual online survey that tracks their confidence, self-esteem and attitudes to school over time, and also helps identify those who need additional pastoral support. But, as Dave Watkin points out, it’s not until after their school days have ended that it’s really possible to see how much
of an impact well-being lessons have had. “It may be that we don’t see the fruit born of the seeds of well-being that we plant in kids until maybe their early 20s. So, we’ve just got to be confident we’re instilling the right values and habits, and that when the kids need to fall back on them, they’re there.” As today’s pupils start to contemplate a very different future from their parents, lessons in well-being can help prepare the way. Young people are increasingly opting for experiences over possessions, swapping the daily commute for a laptop plus broadband lifestyle that turns the whole world into an office, and abandoning quaint, old-fashioned notions of a job for life in favour of multiple careers. Schools can help equip them with the mental tools to make the very most of these new ways of being – to the benefit of society as a whole. l
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