The National Children’s Bureau (NCB) co-ordinates the Schools Wellbeing Partnership, a national network for 50 member organisations. The organisations are from the education, health and wellbeing sectors. The partnership aims to improve the wellbeing of children in education.
The NCB describe a whole school approach to wellbeing as:
‘In a whole school approach, wellbeing and mental health are everyone’s business,’ with genuine engagement across the entire community: staff, pupils, governors, parents and external services. The approach involves multiple components including early identification and intervention; staff wellbeing and development; and skills-based work for pupils, but above all it adopts a positive and universal focus on wellbeing.
The benefits of taking a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing not only improves student wellbeing, but staff wellbeing and retention too. Along with this it’s also shown to improve behaviours across the school and advance academic learning.
Where can we start with developing a whole school approach to wellbeing?
There are some fantastic resources that can help guide us in how we can implement a whole school approach to wellbeing. Here are some to get you started:
‘What works?’ Wellbeing in Schools Guidance
This advice focuses on two areas; how to promote social and emotional learning across the whole school for all students, and secondly, how to support student’s mental health who are experiencing more serious difficulties.
Self-assessment and improvement tool for school leaders.
This self-assessment resources sign posts relevant research and practice. It offers activities to bring everyone in your school together to develop your current practice.
Whole school framework supporting resources.
These supporting resources can be used alongside the assessment tool. The resource aims to help schools in creating sustainable ways to respond to student and staff wellbeing and mental health needs.
OpenView Education’s Mental Health & Wellbeing Workshops
These interactive workshops provide your students with a highly interactive learning experience on wellbeing and mental health. Based on the Five Ways to Wellbeing, students learn valuable self-care strategies for boosting their wellbeing and how we can access support.
We hope you find these resources useful in creating a whole school approach to wellbeing. If you would like to find out how OpenView Education can work with your school, send us a message here, or call us on 0207 459 4473.
