Pupil wellbeing: Why one size doesn’t fit all

Pupil mental health and wellbeing are at the forefront of everyone’s minds at the moment. Within some of my previous classes, I would say that as many as one in four children experienced a mental health and wellbeing struggle at some point during the academic year, of varying degrees and intensities.

It might appear that this issue has come to light (especially in the media!) post-lockdown but the reality is that schools have been trying to meet pupils’ mental health and wellbeing needs for a long time before COVID-19.

Pupil wellbeing is incredibly important, with the bottom line being that if pupils are not happy and thriving emotionally, they will not learn effectively. With this in mind, it’s everyone’s business to make sure that our children are functioning well and have coping mechanisms to support them when coming across life’s challenges.

What kinds of struggles might children have?

Life is so different now from what it was even 10 years ago. Keeping up to date, ensuring a ‘best foot forward’ approach and accepting that students will repeatedly have problems and bumps in the road, are the first steps towards supporting them in leading happy healthy lives.

I am sure everyone knows of pupils in their classes who have needed some support for a variety of reasons. Here are a few common ones to look out for:

• Anxiety
  • Some children worry a little, some worry a lot. I once had a student who felt anxious without being able to articulate what they felt worried about. Other pupils feel worried about just coming into school and then once they have crossed over the doorway, they are fine! Some children can worry about learning, not getting enough team points, being separated from mum or dad, not being good enough, or performing on tests (although the issue of SATs and testing is a whole different blog!).
  • Anxiety is something that we will all feel at one time or another and some children might feel this more intensely than others, with clear physical signs such as sweating, needing to go to the toilet often and behavioural changes in mood.
• Social relationships
  • Some children really struggle with maintaining social relationships positively. There are so many children who this really affects, while the result of having those relationship bonds partially broken during the lockdown periods has also played a part.
  • Social interactions need to be built upon positively in order to thrive and they need practice. This doesn’t always come naturally to children, and it can be a huge challenge for teachers to maintain, foster and support children in growing friendships when they are regularly falling out, arguing or even fighting.
• Early childhood trauma
  • Some of the children in our schools have a lot to deal with in their lives at home. Particularly post COVID-19, the passing away of family members, friends or statistics of deaths on the news has had a huge impact on some children’s wellbeing.
• Depression
  • Depression doesn’t only affect adults; it can affect children too. Children may be indecisive, have low confidence or mood and feel empty or void of emotion. As a teacher, you may have even witnessed pupils self-harming or engaging in self-destructive behaviours. It is important to look out for the risk factors in depression too. These can include family difficulties, bullying, abuse or family histories of mental health problems or depression.
  • Sometimes depression is triggered by one or several things, but it is important to take it seriously and let the pupil know you are there for them and concerned about them.

What is out there already to help pupils?

Throughout my career, I have used and heard about lots of different approaches to supporting children with mental health and wellbeing needs: individualised, small-group and sometimes whole-class or school interventions. Interventions can focus on treatment (once a mental health and wellbeing issue has been identified) or be preventative (introduced to prevent the likelihood of wellbeing deteriorating).

Here is a list of common approaches:

• Emotional Learning Support Assistants (ELSA) and ELSA Support
• Zones of Regulation
• Mindfulness in Schools Project
• Social skills/interaction support
• Forest School Therapy
• PSHE resources
• Yoga/relaxation/meditation
• Other useful websites:
  • Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families
  • Young Minds 
  • Mind 
  • HappyMaps. 

How can we support pupils?

The main thing for us all to understand is that mental health and wellbeing are different for everyone. Depression for one person isn’t the same as it is for another. Anxiety manifests in a variety of different ways and one child may manage or cope with anxiety differently to someone else.

This can make it so difficult to support students when their needs are all so varied, especially when the frequency of need is very apparent and manifests in different ways among lots of children in a classroom.

As teachers, we need to be able to adapt to ensure that we cater for and support children going through mental health and wellbeing bumps. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to mental health and wellbeing.

What we need to ensure is that we all look at the child as an individual and talk to them, finding what is right for them. What will they benefit from most – an intervention or a two-minute check-in at the start or end of their day? It could be that they have their own timetable to alleviate anxiety or their own journal to jot down thoughts and feelings from the day.

Whole-school consistent approaches are great but what’s more important is letting children know on an individual level that you care and that you have got their backs. This is what makes the difference to children – knowing that you have integrity and genuinely care about their feelings, development and wellbeing. And knowing children well enough to spot any changes in their behaviour can make a massive positive difference in building appropriate, impactful and timely responses for children who are at breaking point.

Speaking to some schools, their mental health and wellbeing provision is vast, with interventions, nurture groups and activities. But adapting solutions to the individual’s circumstances is crucial for making sure that we cater for a wide variety of mental health and wellbeing needs in our schools.

It is absolutely normal to struggle with mental health and wellbeing, but when children turn to us in their time of need, we need to be armed and ready with listening ears and personalised approaches that will support them to come out on the other side, wherever and whenever that may be.

About the author

Emma Symonds is Assistant Headteacher and a Specialist Leader of Education at Lime Tree Primary Academy, Manchester.