Like most schools we have spent the past few years acutely aware of the impact of the pandemic on student wellbeing, and working to manage this.

What’s more, with reduced support from external agencies, we knew we wanted to be proactive to teach students good mental health up front, rather than focusing solely on issues when they arose.

As part of this work we provided students with a lesson every two weeks in which they were exposed to research-based information about mental health and emotional wellbeing, practical strategies and signposting for further support. 

Teaching good mental health

The rationale for this, particularly with our younger students, was to provide input and support around developing their emotional resilience and wellbeing, and reducing the number of students who needed higher levels of support as they progressed through school.

The feedback, however, was mixed: some needed more information, some were not getting the information they wanted or needed or, for some, they were not getting anything relevant at all.

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It was clear that we needed to think of something else to supplement this so wellbeing was not just a bolt-on that was looked at briefly and then forgotten about but, instead, was something embedded across school.

As such, I met with a number of curriculum leads from across the school to discuss if and where wellbeing could be taught within the context of their subjects.

Focusing on wellbeing

It soon became clear that actually this was already taking place across the school.

Within biology, students were learning about stress as a natural process: they were learning that it is something that everyone experiences, and what happens to them when they are feeling stressed.

Within PE and dance they were learning the physical benefits of exercise for their mental health.

Within the creative arts subjects such as art, drama and music students were being taught how to express themselves and the impact that having an outlet for this has for their emotional health.

It was taking place in many other areas across the curriculum, too; creative writing and poetry in English, where again students were given a means to express themselves and their emotions, while design and technology was also giving students a means of expressing themselves.

In psychology students were being taught about the brain and its functions, again looking at stress and how they are responding to it. Even student volunteers working in the eco garden were engaging in strategies to reduce their stress and promote their mental health.

In short, we had a broad and balanced curriculum that gave students numerous opportunities to learn about wellbeing across our school - they were just not explicitly aware of it.

Designing the logo

So, following discussions with the curriculum leads, we decided to create a logo that could be used by teachers to make it clear whenever a discussion, resource or activity had a link to wellbeing.

This would be a low-effort, low-cost way to promote wellbeing on an ongoing basis across the school. Creating the logo itself meant using an online logo creator. This was low-cost and meant we had the full rights to the logo and could use it wherever and however we wanted.  

Once agreed, we held a staff briefing to explain to teachers its rationale and how they could incorporate it into lesson plans or resources when relevant to demonstrate to students that their learning had a direct link to wellbeing.

Immediate impact

The impact of this has been that we have transformed wellbeing from being “done” for 20 minutes once a fortnight into something that is a fundamental part of our school.

Furthermore, feedback gathered from staff and students indicates that emotional wellbeing is recognised to be a part of the curriculum and students can talk confidently and openly about where and how they have learned to look after and support their own wellbeing and each other’s.

By ensuring that wellbeing was woven into the fabric of the school day we were building in more opportunities to ensure that students recognise that wellbeing is something for everyone and has an inherent value attached to it.

Sarah Arney is an assistant principal in a mixed secondary 11-18 school in Bromley