A recent study by the Independent Association of Prep Schools and Tooled Up Education revealed that 67 per cent of school staff worry about pupils’ ability to interact face-to-face and 76 per cent worry about their screen time as they return to the classroom.
The lack of in-person interactions pupils have had with their peers over the lockdowns has been detrimental to their social skills and requires school staff and parents to work together to improve pupils’ emotional development. However, two in five (38 per cent) of staff have concerns about parents’ willingness to do so.
A growing inability to express emotion and collaborate with each other has been a trend Eton End school in Datchet, Berkshire, first identified amongst its pupils after they came back from the first lockdown in summer 2020.
“Sunny Selves has been fully integrated into the school ethos.”
Staff at Eton End school recognised the need to create a bespoke mental health and wellbeing initiative to provide pupils with the tools to help themselves. As such, they launched “Sunny Selves”, an initiative that focused on equipping pupils with language to help them communicate and understand what to do when they’re not feeling “sunny”.
“Sunny Selves” has since been fully integrated into the school ethos, with posters across campus and “mindful moments” used in assemblies and classrooms when children are over-excited after playtime and not in the mindset to concentrate.
The initiative is also an essential part of the PSHE curriculum, which uses the JigSaw programme to provide teachers with lesson plans and resources to teach mindfulness effectively. In addition to mindfulness, the initiative covers a range of other key areas for the pupils, such as healthy eating, sleep, friendship, and relationship rebuilding.
“Eton End recognised that the emotional wellbeing of pupils is a joint responsibility of staff and parents.”
Due to the initiative’s simple, yet effective, strategies, there is no requirement for prior training in the area of wellbeing for staff to use it, so teachers have taken to it extremely well. Despite this, the school recognised that dealing with more serious emotions and anxieties requires expertise, and so recently hired two specialist counsellors to help with increasing pupil anxiety post-lockdown – something many schools are currently experiencing.
Eton End also recognised that the emotional wellbeing of pupils is a joint responsibility of staff and parents, so involvement and engagement of parents in the “Sunny Selves” initiative has been a key factor. The staff at Eton End have used workshops and utilised their newsletter to educate parents on ensuring common language is being used by both teachers and parents when communicating about emotional wellbeing, so pupils receive the same guidance in both the school and home environment.
“Workshops will look at parents’ innate need to protect their children, and work through the psychology of how best to help them.”
This year, Eton End are extending parental involvement by launching workshops for both parents and children as part of their Covid Recovery Programme. The parents’ workshop will be conducted by external professionals to handle the more serious cases of anxiety and depression, and guide parents on how they can help their children through these instances, while building their resilience. The workshops will look at parents’ innate need to protect their children, and work through the psychology of how best to help them.
Sophie Banks, headteacher, Eton End: “At Eton End, we know that ensuring students are aware of their emotional wellbeing is of paramount importance, especially as they navigate out of the pandemic which has been detrimental to the most important years of their educational and social development. We are proud of the impact of our Sunny Selves initiative so far and look forward to seeing the effects of the wellbeing element of our Covid Recovery Programme, as we collaborate with parents to build pupil resilience during this challenging time.”