With this month’s Mental Health Awareness Week in mind, Charlotte Phillips finds out how our local schools are taking positive steps for pupil wellbeing
With Mental Health Awareness Week taking place between 11-17 May, our local schools are fully geared up and ready to participate. And impressive though their plans are, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. With children’s wellbeing now a year-round focus, schools are making it an integral part of their educational offering.
Quite right too, given the figures. According to MHFAE (Mental Health First Aid England), just over 20% of children and young people had a probable mental health condition in 2023 – almost double what it was six years ago.
While children can suffer from poor mental health at any point, age can make a difference, with children at greater risk as they move up through senior school.
Greater academic pressure, social media and bullying are among the factors that can have an impact on mental health. Schools, therefore, have a hugely important role to play in spotting when children may be struggling and helping them develop functional and healthy coping mechanisms.
Mental health matters
At Comberton Village College, developing pupils’ mental health and wellbeing is a core part of the school’s ethos. “We promote a broad education, with a focus on personal development,” says principal Victoria Hearn. “Our aim is to create pupils who are ‘caring, confident and capable’, and we promote this through every aspect of the school’s work.”
Mental health matters because of the effect it can have on every aspect of life. According to the World Health Organisation, it’s a basic human right – positive mental health allows people to cope with life’s normal stresses, realise their abilities, work (or learn) well and contribute to their community.
St Faith’s is one of the local schools creating the conditions for a supportive culture to thrive – starting at a very early age. Pupils as young as four, for example, are encouraged to think about kindness, connection and what makes them feel valued, says Louise Wakefield, head of pre prep at the school.
Making change
For Mental Health Awareness Week this year, the emphasis is on taking action (not just raising awareness), and that’s definitely where our local schools come in with an array of imaginative and thought-provoking activities and initiatives.
As principal at Sancton Wood School Richard Settle points out, that emphasis on positive ways of thinking and acting can have a long-term impact. “It can sharpen the focus,” he says. “You need a joined-up approach that’s going to cover not just the children’s time at school but build a state of mind that will carry them through their lives afterwards.”
He cites the importance of building strong routines that include self-care – reminding children (and their families) of the importance of movement, social connection, healthy eating, good sleep and personal reflection.
Initiatives during Mental Health Awareness Week are designed to tick all these boxes and more. Abbey College Cambridge’s plans range from getting pupils to cycle their way to healthy smoothies using a pedal-powered blender, to small acts of kindness where students gift thoughtful items to others as a way of saying thank you or simply brightening up their day.
At Framlingham College, students (and staff) will be given green ribbons during Mental Health Awareness Week and enjoy events like yoga sessions or ‘wear-a-onesie day’. The library will turn into a mindfulness sanctuary featuring titles linked to wellbeing, kindness and psychology. In the prep school, the week will be marked by a mental health-themed assembly, dressing up on ‘wear-something-green day’ to raise funds for mental health and activities such as forest school and pond dipping.
All year round
Outside Mental Health Awareness Week, local schools also stress the importance of building an environment and culture where positive mental health has the ideal conditions to thrive every day of the year.
A nurturing and inclusive approach permeates every aspect of school life at St Faith’s. In the pre prep, a rethink of Blue Monday in January transforms it into Bright Monday, complete with gentle routines, storytelling and reconnection with friends, adding a positive emotional dimension to the new term. Other highlights during the year include gardening and sensory walks, while the classroom environment is carefully designed to be uncluttered and calm with cosy areas and safe spaces. Families, meanwhile, are encouraged to adopt techniques like mindful breathing and simple regulation so that there is consistency between home and school.
For older prep pupils at St Faith’s, the emphasis on pastoral care “is a huge strength of the school and proactive in structure,” says Liz Kennerley, head of outreach. The school’s offering is vast. Mental health-themed assemblies help normalise the language of wellbeing and reduce stigma, and teaching involves showing children how to recognise the causes of stress – and develop positive coping strategies. With 20 members of staff trained as youth mental health first aiders and other specialists, including a counsellor, there’s no shortage of help.
In other schools, too, you’ll find a similarly thorough and considered approach to wellbeing and mental health, from younger pupils at Sancton Wood School selecting a sticker each morning that reflects how they are feeling – happy, sad or worried, for example – to what Framlingham College describes as its ‘comprehensive support system, which includes mental-health, first-aid-trained staff, an on-site medical centre, an in-house clinical psychologist, wellbeing periods and buddy systems’.
Comberton Village College, meanwhile, prides itself on creating a safe and calm environment through quiet spaces such as ‘the Den’ where pupils can go during social times. Specific support for mental health includes offering spiritual reflection and wellbeing discussion through West Cambridge Christian Youth Ministries, as well as access to therapeutic support and mentoring, while cinema trips and theme park visits help to promote socialisation.
Prepared for life
Many schools – Framlingham College, Sancton Wood School and Abbey College Cambridge among them – appoint pupil wellbeing ambassadors to help make a real difference, particularly in the run-up to exam season. “Our wellbeing ambassadors are good communicators and recognise that it isn’t all about study but making time for yourself and understanding the value of nature, doing sport and socialising,” says Dr Carolyn Dunn, vice principal pastoral at Abbey College Cambridge.
Sancton Wood School’s year 11 pupils start each exam day with breakfast in the canteen. Fruit and hot chocolate are items on the menu – together with unlimited quantities of reassurance. “It’s a calm environment before every single exam,” says Richard Settle. “They’ve got that same routine and the message from the staff is, ‘Don’t worry, you’ve got this’. It’s all about having a clearer, calmer state of mind and building confidence rather than pressure.”
Get it right at this point, adds Carolyn at Abbey College Cambridge, and there’s every chance that you will be equipping pupils with mental health skills that last. “It’s about preparing them for the next stage,” she says. “Everything is building towards those lifelong skills that they are going to take into the workplace; that’s what we aim to do. One of the key words we use is balance – getting our students to be that person who can cope with whatever life throws at them.”