Stress around exams and assessments is normal, but it can also impact negatively on college work and day-to-day life. Get practical advice on helping your students through these periods of stress. This resource provides information for college staff on how to identify if a student is struggling with exam and assessment stress, and how to support them.

Most eating disorders develop during adolescence, so college is a significant time for those struggling with eating disorders. Learn more about how to support your students and where else to get help. Support and guidance for staff in further education colleges on the topic of eating disorders, sharing signs to spot, conversation starters and who else to involve.

Efforts taken by schools and colleges to promote the physical and mental health of the student population creates a virtuous circle, reinforcing attainment and achievement that in turn improves student wellbeing, enabling students to thrive and achieve their full potential. With half of all diagnosable mental health disorders established by the age of 14, there is a strong case to promote children and young people’s mental health. There are a range of risk and protective factors that impact on mental wellbeing. These span individual factors, family, learning environments and the wider community. The evidence tells us that the learning environment plays an important and valued role in helping protect and promote student mental wellbeing. Public Health England and the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families are committed to improving health outcomes for children, young people and their families, and collaborated to fund and develop this toolkit. The toolkit aims to raise awareness amongst school and college staff of the range of validated tools that are available to help measure subjective mental wellbeing amongst the student population. This, in turn, will help school and college leaders make use of school and college level data to identify the mental wellbeing needs of students and determine how best to address these.

As part of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families ‘You’re never too young to talk mental health’ campaign we’ve released a series of expert advice videos for schools on a range of topics. Here, Brenda McHugh, Consultant Psychotherapist, gives advice to school staff about engaging with parents.

In this booklet we include some examples of good practice that schools have shared with us about how they’ve responded to the challenges of lockdown. We also look at how this period of lockdown can help us think about whole-school approaches to mental health and include some suggestions about how to start this process.

Our free Supporting schools and colleges booklet provides advice and guidance for school staff about how to help children and young people manage their mental health and wellbeing during times of disruption to their learning.

We know that over 50% of mental illnesses start before the age of 14 and one in 8 children and young people has a mental health disorder. The Talking Mental Health animation and accompanying resources aim to open up conversations with children about mental health in school, at home and with friends. The Toolkit includes: An assembly plan A lesson plan A set of cross-curricular activities Resources to accompany the above These plans and acivities have been written by a group of teachers at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. While we recognise that every school and class is different, we have produced these as a starting point for working with years 5 and 6 at your school.

Concerns about the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people are currently in the public spotlight. However, any conversation about supporting our children’s wellbeing must also include how we support our teachers. We must do more to support school leaders, teachers and other school staff to ensure that their mental health and wellbeing is prioritised. If we don’t recognise the importance of this we will fail not only staff, but the children and young people they support. This resource is based on the views of school staff who participated through our Schools in Mind learning network and those who responded to our Teacher Tapp survey. This resource provides some helpful materials and encourages schools to reflect that if they want to make a success of promoting children’s mental health, this can only be achieved by giving the staff wellbeing the consideration it deserves. We have summarised the ten key ideas that have come out of this resource in a poster which can be downloaded and printed or shared.

Teaching is a tough job. It can be immensely rewarding but also physically and emotionally draining. If we want our school staff to do what is asked of them, then we need to make sure that their mental health and wellbeing is effectively supported. This booklet has been developed with our mental health experts, and aims to give school staff and Senior Leadership Teams some simple guidance and good practical examples where schools have successfully implemented wellbeing strategies. Topics featured include: What can impact or support staff wellbeing? What can Supervision look like in schools? How can senior leaders prioritise wellbeing?

This animation and accompanying teacher toolkit is aimed at supporting pupils who have recently started Year 7 or who will be preparing to transition to secondary school later in the year (Years 6 and 7). They were developed in collaboration with young people, teachers and mental health experts. The animation aims to support pupils to: Identify potential worries associated with starting secondary school Know they’re not alone if they are feeling worried Talk to a trusted adult or friend if they have any concerns Identify solutions and strategies for looking after their mental health, including self-care