Looking after wellbeing in primary schools

Embedding a culture of wellbeing into schools is a vital long-term project and requires a whole-school approach but there are things we can all do to promote it. We were delighted to collaborate with Andrew Cowley – former Deputy Headteacher turned keynote speaker and author of The Wellbeing Toolkit and The Wellbeing Curriculum – to produce two Teachit Talks videos and resources about the culture of wellbeing. Wellbeing for senior leaders and Wellbeing as curriculum are full of helpful advice for senior leaders and class teachers respectively. 

Below you'll find further advice and resources to help you put wellbeing front and centre.

Author: Jo Barwell
Published: 02/02/2022

Wellbeing for staff

We're always told to put our own oxygen mask on first and it's certainly true that it's difficult to support others if we're not feeling well ourselves. Andy Sammons - author of The Compassionate Teacher - offers sound advice to teachers in his article 10 golden rules of mental health wellbeing and these 20 ideas to improve teacher wellbeing in schools are easily implemented as a way to support colleagues. This PowerPoint, Building your resilience: CPD for teachers, focuses on the small ways we can build our resilience through everyday actions and includes an overview of some of the common warning signs that your resilience is low, as well as ideas and strategies you can use when you are under pressure. You might also try Simple wellbeing strategies, which was written for lockdown but includes many suggestions we can take into school or continue at home. 

Wellbeing for children

Author Jenny Mosely offers very practical suggestions for maintaining children's mental health and wellbeing in her article Promoting wellbeing in schools which is accompanied by a useful resource, Tips for wellbeing. Jenny's tips can be used for any age group.

Using the 'Ten Keys to Happier Living' as a framework for the teaching of emotional wellbeing and happier living skills does exactly what it says on the (rather large) tin. The writers of this resource and of the accompanying article Teaching emotional wellbeing skills offer great suggestions for how to teach children the keys to happier living - the central theme of the Action for Happiness Movement. It's food for thought for all of us.

Five tips to promote wellbeing is a great child-facing resource that includes a challenge in which children roll a die and complete the corresponding activity. It's suitable for KS1 or KS2.

And finally, if you, a colleague or someone in your care needs more, our resource 10 ways to find support for children and young people's mental health signposts a list of organisations that offer mental health support and advice for adults and children with mental health challenges. These include Place2Be, Young Minds, the NHS and Mentally Healthy Schools. 

This article was first published as Editor's pick on 16 January 2022. 

Jo Barwell

Senior Content Lead at Teachit

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