Having friends and a network of support is a vital factor in our emotional wellbeing and self-esteem. Being with friends and feeling secure in friendships, has a significant impact on children’s learning and engagement at school.
Giving children a voice and opportunities to feel heard and valued is essential in creating wellbeing cultures in our schools, as well as being vital for mental health, our relationships and social and emotional development.
We've only just begun to see the light at the end of the tunnel with covid restrictions lifting in schools and the delicate hope of things beginning to improve. Then suddenly, we are hit with shocking, frightening and devastating news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Current research presents a stark landscape across the country in light of the pandemic and the impact on mental ill-heath. Children are at disadvantage because of where they live. Equality in outcome and provision is disproportionate and dramatically underfunded.
Ofsted has said it’s following public health guidance but will be ‘carefully’ considering requests from schools to defer inspections. But Tes reports¹ that one in three requests from schools to defer inspections has been turned down. How can we ‘carry on as usual?’ and shouldn’t the focus be on support and a focus on emotional wellbeing and care so that stress is alleviated, minimised and reduced?
How has it crept up on us, deemed acceptable and in fact policy, that we have moved to a way of telling children they are ‘working towards’ or need ‘catch up’ or are ‘working below expectation.’ There are “alarming rates of stress and anxiety” in our high-performing students, as well as the impact on children who are forever being told they are not ‘good enough.’
Whilst children need to have the structure, the routines, and the opportunities to engage again in learning post covid, they also need greater opportunities for a broad, creative and expressive curriculum that is embodied as a whole school approach that really holds wellbeing and children’s current and long term mental health at the heart.
The now statutory subject of PSHE is vital to prepare children with the life skills and knowledge to equip them for the wider world. With a focus on mental wellbeing, is there enough focus on the complexity of emotion, opportunity to feel heard, listened too and given a language of emotion?
Proud to be working with the prestigious Department of Psychology, University of Bath in a research project to explore and exemplify impact on children’s wellbeing.
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