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Provide pupils with tools and strategies to help them become emotionally resilient

Measuring Impact and Success

You might consider:

  • pupil interviews/surveys (victims and perpetrators)
  • examining behaviour records, including repeat behaviour
  • parental interviews/surveys
  • staff interviews/surveys.

Remember in each case to describe the impact of your actions (that is, what difference they made) and not just what you did.

Overview

 

Part of building a resilient mindset as we get older is learning how to become better at managing our emotions. Children and young people need to be given sensitive guidance throughout childhood to help them manage strong emotions. Left unchecked, children are likely to become overwhelmed and lose perspective quickly.

Schools can be the safe and secure place where they can be helped to regulate their feelings and communicate their problems in a socially acceptable way. Children and young people learn the strategies over time and this helps them to be more resilient when they encounter emotional distress in the future. Schools are the best places to support pupils to talk about their strong emotions and find ways to destress, such as using mindfulness.

This benchmark also suggests that the school should adopt a restorative behaviour strategy to help children acknowledge the effect their behaviour might have on others and promote empathy. The method of restorative justice gives pupils the tools to help them manage and resolve conflict in their lives.

Intentions

Intentions are actions you intend to take in order to improve your provision in this benchmark. Choose three intentions to focus on.

To meet this benchmark, your school should agree on the strategies it will use to help pupils regulate their emotions when they are out of control.

Here are a few suggestions:

  • Some schools have adopted the ‘Take 5’ approach across the school which teaches children to regulate their breathing and count to five when they feel their emotions overwhelming them.
  • Very Well Family recommends the following:
    • practise deep breathing
    • count to calm down
    • take a break
    • create a ‘calm-down’ kit
    • problem-solve with the child
    • identify mood boosters.
  • Hey Sigmund provides a great set of techniques to use to help regulate emotions and the reasons for doing them.

You should decide how is best to deliver these techniques in your school. It could be through PSHE lessons or a meditation routine at the end of each day to calm pupils down. Whatever the chosen set of techniques, it is best to make sure pupils practise these regularly.

In addition, it is important to ensure that everyone understands the rationale for using these techniques to help manage pupil emotions. You could make this a pupil and staff collaboration to come up with the best intent statement: how we become a ‘calm school’. Using the SUMO questions you are helping children and young people to manage their own distress or upset.

For the early years
Self-control and managing emotions and feelings are central to the EYFS framework 2021. Staff in the setting should model such strategies early. Consider a ‘calming place’ in the setting where children can retreat when they need to. You can also help children to understand the impact of their behaviour on others by helping them to talk about their feelings. Develop their vocabulary and use dual coding images or emojis to support this.

Top tips

  • Inform parents about your strategy and trial techniques with them.
  • Signpost strategies on the school website and through social media communications.

Further resources

 

In order to help pupils become emotionally resilient, your school staff should become reflective of their own emotional resilience. By doing so, they can try some of the suggested techniques but more importantly, become more empathetic when supporting pupils’ emotional resilience:

  • Consider asking all school staff to complete the staff resilience baseline assessment.
  • Devise some typical scenarios to role play during a CPD session to help staff practise the techniques. For example, teachers practise pointing out the emotion, which is valid but separating it from the behaviour that might need to be modified.
  • Establish a set of phrases for all school staff to use to help pupils self-regulate when they encounter situations that cause strong emotions.

Staff could also be taught some typical ‘mindfulness’ techniques as well as the science behind them. The research on the benefits of mindfulness could fill a small city, but make sure staff are aware of how mindfulness works by changing the structure and the function of the brain:

  • First, it strengthens the part of the brain that drives high emotion, so that it reacts less automatically or impulsively.
  • Second, it strengthens the prefrontal cortex – the thinking part of the brain that is able to weigh in and calm big emotions and consider consequences.
  • Finally, it strengthens the connections between the two, meaning that in times of high emotion, the prefrontal cortex will be quicker and more able to work with the emotion centres of the brain to find calm. 

Top tips

  • Get the pastoral team to champion the approach.
  • Ensure staff are trained well to deliver the mindfulness techniques.

Further resources

Part of building a resilient mindset is being able to accept that weakness or failure is a necessary part of life from which we must all learn and grow. Resilience is derived from knowing that misbehaviour and poor choices need not be catastrophic. By learning from mistakes, we are able to bounce back improved and wiser. This is how restorative justice leads to resilience.

In order to implement this intention, schools need to understand the main theory behind restorative justice and the potential benefits of adopting this approach to managing behaviour. Restorative Justice 4 Schools uses this definition:

‘Restorative Justice is a process that resolves conflict. It is part of a larger ethos also known as Restorative Practices/Approaches. It promotes telling the truth, taking responsibility, acknowledging harm as appropriate response to conflict and in doing so creates accountability.’.

Benefits of using restorative approaches to the victim:

  • opportunity to participate in a process that they are central to
  • have their say
  • take back some control of their situation by choosing to participate
  • ask any questions
  • have a say about reparation, unpaid work, financial restitution or an apology
  • witness genuine remorse
  • reduces anxiety and possible post-traumatic stress disorder.

Benefits of using restorative approaches to the offender:

  • learn about the harm they caused
  • acknowledge that harm
  • explain what happened
  • opportunity to apologise
  • attempt to repair the harm caused
  • reduces reoffending.

Adapting the school’s behaviour policy to follow restorative justice allows perpetrators of harm or misdemeanour to reflect on their actions and the impact it might have had on others. And by allowing the ‘victim’ to participate in the process, it gives them back control and reinforces their notion of agency in any negative incident in their life going forward. Sanctions will apply as per the behaviour policy but the rehabilitation is carefully planned.

Some ways to implement this intention:

  • Adapt your current school policy to ensure that perpetrators of anti-social behaviour and bullying reflect on their actions and hear victim impact statements, as appropriate.
  • Staff would need to be trained to support this approach.
  • Provide pastoral staff with training to conduct such mediation activities.
  • Inform parents about the process through the policy and information section on your website.

Your school leaders should be clear about how they will measure how successful this practice is. For example, repeat behaviours should diminish and victims should report no repercussions. This approach should help to encourage compassion and empathy but must not be seen as a soft option.

Top tip

  • Take advice from SEND experts to help support those pupils who may not be able to read emotions or others’ behaviour well, such as pupils with ASD.

Further resources

 

Many schools, mainly primary schools, already understand the value of a room for pupils to retreat to which provides calming sensory stimulation (particularly for those with ASD needs).

Gaining a calm and balanced state allows all children and young people the space to regulate their emotions. It is necessary for pupils with additional needs, especially those with ASD and others too, when required. Teaching children to find a calming space when they find it difficult to regulate their emotions is a simple and quick way to achieve emotional equilibrium. The reset space can be useful in supporting pupils to regulate their emotions.

Consider carefully how this space will be used and devise a policy:

  • If it is to be used during lessons, who might supervise? It is important that this valuable space is not abused and only used when necessary.
  • What rules will apply (for example, use soft voices only)?
  • How can pupils use the space sensibly? Give them some tips and guidance, for example: ‘When I feel strong emotions I can ask to go to the calm space…’ or ‘When I have had a very unsettling time at home, I can use the calm space…’
  • Consider offering the space before school starts to help pupils start the day well.
  • The space may also be used during counselling sessions for pupils.

Top tip

  • Undertake some research into the best design, colour scheme and environment to create the most effective calming space and why. Multi-sensory objects like a fish tank and running water can work well.

Further resources

Mindfulness has become a very popular and effective technique to achieve balance and control in times of disorder and emotional distress. It works by changing the structure and the function of the brain:

  • First, it strengthens the part of the brain that drives high emotion, so that it reacts less automatically or impulsively.
  • Second, it strengthens the prefrontal cortex – the thinking part of the brain that is able to weigh in and calm big emotions and consider consequences.
  • Finally, it strengthens the connections between the two, meaning that in times of high emotion, the prefrontal cortex will be quicker and more able to work with the emotion centres of the brain to find calm.

Making mindfulness part of the school’s mental health strategy will aim to help pupils gain valuable techniques during times of adversity. Make sure that staff are trained well to deliver the mindfulness techniques and that pupils are able to have weekly or even daily practice.

You should also consider how mindfulness can be used in all curriculum areas not just within PSHE. It could be used to break up learning tasks or to end a lesson.

Top tip

  • Post some mindfulness techniques on your school website and let parents know how mindfulness can be practised at home.

Further resources

In response to the 2018 green paper on young people’s mental health, the government committed to providing mental health awareness training to every secondary school by 2019 and to every primary school by 2022. While it is unclear how much progress has been made on the government’s mental health pledge, most schools have put into place their own mental health provision. Many schools have already appointed a mental health first aider and leader.

This intention is about providing pupils with a trained person in school to whom they can speak about worries or concerns. To break down the stigma around mental health, it is very important that signposting to support services is clear and available to everyone. Pastoral lessons can also emphasise the benefits of talking about problems. This is especially true when tackling the prevalence among boys and young men, who through social expectations, may not feel comfortable coming forward for talking therapies.

Schools can play a big part in breaking these stereotypes. Helping pupils to see the benefits of talking therapy will help them to seek help if they need it later in their lives.

Professional counsellors can be quite expensive, so it is important that anyone appointed comes with a reliable track record and has experience of working with pupils of the age at your school. Consider sharing counsellors among local schools if you are not in a multi-academy trust.

Staff who are interested in embarking on counselling qualifications might be able to enrol in school-funded courses. Level 2 and 3 awards are available to pursue in the evenings and weekends.

Top tips

  • Make parents aware of the counselling facility and the benefits of talking therapies.
  • Make the application to see a counsellor discreet, perhaps online. Use your website.

Further resources

Reflection

Think about ways you might include the following:

  • Could the school forestall potential problems and provide interventions early for key pupils?
  • Could staff use the strategies themselves to manage their own wellbeing (for example, Headspace app)?
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