Kesteven and Sleaford High School
When the pandemic struck in March 2020 Debbie Collett knew that young people’s mental health issues were bound to be magnified.
Her fears proved right. Across the country, while some pupils enjoyed being at home during lockdown and were relatively resilient, others felt anxious, lonely and isolated. Often unable to get up in the morning, they found it difficult to motivate themselves to get on with their learning.
Determined to work out how best to support students at Kesteven and Sleaford High School, a girls’ grammar in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, once they were back in school, Ms Collett, assistant headteacher (pastoral and wellbeing), decided to survey staff, pupils and parents.
“We discovered an incredibly mixed picture,” explained Ms Collett, who is also the school’s SENCO, designated safeguarding lead and pastoral lead. “Some young people were coping absolutely fine but at the other end of the spectrum others were finding things really difficult.”
Over the last two years, the school has created and embedded a culture of wellbeing. There are 759 pupils on roll and the school serves a mixed catchment area, with pockets of rural deprivation in the outlying villages.
Ms Collett realised that it was important for teachers to upskill themselves in order to meet pupils’ needs.
“Even though we had partners like CAMHS and Healthy Minds, we could see that we were going to need more in-school provision and more understanding of mental health issues,” she said.
One of the first steps was for senior and middle leaders to undertake a two-day Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training course. Twelve staff are now MHFA-trained or undergoing training while eight are Youth MHFA-trained.
Five tiers of mental health
The school also launched a new set of mental health and wellbeing pathways – a five-tier approach that signposts the ways in which students can access support for their mental health and wellbeing.
The first tier focuses on mental health for all. This means highlighting the importance of wellbeing in students’ everyday lives – from daily form-time to Wellbeing Wednesday, a day devoted to different aspects of wellbeing and mental health, such as anxiety and self-esteem.
“Our theme this term is ‘commitment’ – so we’ll be saying: ‘What are you going to commit to?’” explained Ms Collett.
“It could be committing to having better quality sleep or putting your phone down two hours before going to bed. The students create commitment cards – the idea is to put them somewhere discreet in the form room and then take them out at the end of term and see how they’ve done.
“Staff do it as well. For example, I work long hours but on Wednesdays I commit to leaving at a decent time, doing a dog walk or a swim and just switching off. Little by little, it gets into your psyche.”
The second and third tiers include trained student wellbeing ambassadors who offer peer-to-peer support and a bespoke in-school listening service for pupils run by SEND staff: “The listening service has been a great asset,” said Mrs Collett. “Young people and teachers know that there is someone they can go and talk to.”
The fourth tier consists of bespoke support from outside agencies such as CAMHS and Healthy Minds while the fifth tier is a confidential counselling service run by CASY – Counselling and Support for Young People – a Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire charity.
Ms Collett and her team have put regular training for staff in place, helping them to understand emerging mental health issues, encouraging them to embed mental health and wellbeing in their everyday language, and supporting their work with pupils. This builds on previous initiatives, such as growth mindset awards for pupils who have shown particular resilience and a parents’ newsletter echoing the themes of Wellbeing Wednesdays.
“Mental health is everyone’s responsibility,” she concluded. “Our teachers have been brilliant. They recognise how important the wellbeing agenda is and understand that they are part of the solution. They’re not just experts delivering their expert material. They are more than that to young people. They are their ambassadors, their counsel, the people they turn to when they are in crisis.”
Ms Collett left us with some advice for other schools on putting mental health and wellbeing strategies in place:
- Have a clear vision – but be prepared to deviate from it if it isn’t working.
- Make sure the senior leadership team believes in what you are doing and is absolutely invested in it.
- Access all the funding you can. Government funding is available to train thousands of senior mental health leads for school and college staff.
- Bring staff along with you. The more you talk about mental health and wellbeing in your school, the more staff will feel engaged and involved.
- Be compassionate and passionate about what you are doing. How can you inspire other staff to do what you are asking them to do if you do not commit and invest in the approach yourself?
Highlands School
Highlands School, a comprehensive in Enfield, north London, with 1,557 students on roll, has always prioritised pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. The school had a full-time counsellor before the pandemic, and it now has a social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) lead and MHFA-trained mentors for every year group as well.
“The step-change of Covid meant that we had to relook at everything,” explained Michele Phillips, deputy headteacher (behaviour and pastoral) and designated safeguarding lead.
“Pre-Covid the pastoral services we had in-house were strong, but post-Covid we found that the demand for specialist mental health provision increased. The demand on external agencies was so high that we had to be as creative as possible in finding additional ways to support the increased number of students needing support.”
With that in mind, the school introduced several new initiatives. Ahead of the first lockdown vulnerable students were each allocated a key worker who held regular video meetings with them to check how they were coping. Once the school opened its doors to all the students again it expanded the number of staff taking on caseloads of vulnerable students.
“The key workers each have a caseload of around 15 students who they meet on a regular basis,” said Ms Phillips. “It means we’re able to offer a bespoke one-to-one service for them.”
A wellbeing room
Concerned by the significant increase in the number of students who needed mental health support, the school also launched a wellbeing room – a safe and quiet space for youngsters experiencing issues such as anxiety, depression or trauma.
The room is equipped with comfortable chairs, low-level lighting and calming music and is run by a wellbeing co-ordinator who has a range of therapeutic qualifications. She leads intervention programmes for groups of 12 students at a time (programmes run for six to eight weeks, with hour-long sessions each week). Up to 100 students access the wellbeing room every week.
The pastoral team identifies students who would benefit from the short-term intervention programmes. “It’s by invitation only,” explained Jody Larter, assistant headteacher and mental health lead. “If they have been identified with a particular mental health need or need a bit more of a nurturing environment, we consider them to access the room.”
Sessions offer a variety of provision, from emotional regulation, where students learn different ways to regulate their emotional state, to mindfulness and stress management. A trained therapy dog called Freddie visits once a week to support pupils’ mental health and wellbeing and increase their confidence levels.
The school takes a holistic whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. All members of the safeguarding and pastoral teams are now MHFA-trained and staff CPD sessions focus even more on mental health.
“There are four waves of how we deal with student wellbeing,” said Ms Phillips. “The first is the universal offer to everybody. We have whole school systems in place to support all students’ wellbeing. Students start each day by seeing their form tutors and every year team has four members of pastoral staff dedicated to the students.
“Wave 2 is for students who need additional support, such as key worker/mentor provision, and wave 3 is where students need specialist in-house support, such as seeing the student counsellor or going to the wellbeing room. Wave 4 is where we refer to external agencies.”
Even though the wellbeing room only opened in November 2021, it is already having an impact.
“I spoke to a parent a few weeks ago who said the therapy dog has been absolutely wonderful for her daughter, who has significant mental health challenges,” said Ms Phillips. “We’ve had really positive feedback.”
Asked for her advice for other schools when putting mental health and wellbeing strategies in place, Ms Phillips said:
- Give student wellbeing and pastoral systems the same accountability as teaching and the curriculum.
- Make sure that a member of the senior leadership team is knowledgeable about mental health and wellbeing and takes responsibility for it.
- Take a holistic approach – so all members of staff see it as their responsibility to promote student wellbeing. Ensure they have the right mental health and wellbeing training.
- Consider how you can improve everyday school systems to support students’ wellbeing, such as behaviour and the classroom environment
- Look at prevention, not just cure.
- Emma Lee-Potter is a freelance education journalist.
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