This week, schools and students throughout the North East took part in Children’s Mental Health Week.

#LetsConnect

Children’s Mental Health Week began in 2015, launched by children’s mental health charity Place2Be. The campaign aims to shine a spotlight on children’s mental health. Schools get involved through assemblies, activities and themed campaign resources provided by Place2Be as well as creating their own wellbeing activities.

This year’s theme is ‘Let’s Connect’, asking schools to create meaningful connections. Place2Be say:

“People thrive in communities, and this connection is vital for our wellbeing. Having healthy connections – to family, friends and others – can support our mental health and sense of wellbeing.” 

A visit from the Minions

Cramlington Shanklea Primary School took part in the campaign this week with a range of activities including a visit from the characters from the Minions movie franchise – something that surely won’t be forgotten by students anytime soon.

Laura Ritson, Head Teacher at Shanklea said:

“At Shanklea Primary School we feel mental health and wellbeing is everyone’s responsibility and so aim to embed throughout everything we do! We did celebrate Mental Health and Wellbeing Week and had lots of exciting activities for the pupils such as a silent disco, class challenges and the minions even came to visit which enabled us to have lots more opportunities to ‘make connections’ which was this year’s theme ! However, we also recognise the importance of talking daily about mental health with our pupils, the team and the community and so have weekly lessons and assemblies on mental health and wellbeing.  Together We Achieve More: Team Shanklea!”

Trust Wide Strategy

Meanwhile, Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust has engaged with Children’s Mental Health Week with a strategy that includes all of their schools. The multi-academy trust put out the message ‘we have time to talk’. The trust has a growing team of 110 mental health first aiders (including CEO Brendan Tapping), showing they have a keen focus on looking after the mental health of children and adults alike.

Place2Be’s theme of ‘Let’s Connect’ complements the existing proactive strategy of ‘5 Ways to Wellbeing’ (Give, Connect, Learn, Take Notice and Be Active). The trust uses 5 Ways to Wellbeing to nurture positive mental health on a daily basis.

Louise Swailes, mental health co-ordinator at Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust,

said:

“During Children’s Mental Health Week, we are reminded of the importance of looking

after our mental health on a daily basis. We all have mental health and it is equally as important as our physical health, as it impacts all areas of our lives including our emotional, psychological and social wellbeing.”

All of the Trust’s Sunderland-based schools are working towards the Sunderland Mental Health Charter Mark. St Mary’s Catholic Primary School has achieved gold and St Aidan’s Catholic Academy was recently awarded the silver award. St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Jarrow and St Aidan’s Catholic Academy in Sunderland were both recently awarded a bronze Better Health at Work Award for their commitment to improving both physical and mental health within the school staff.

Daily Mindfulness

Barnard Grove Primary School, in Hartlepool, also took part in Children’s Mental Health Week. The school is making mental health a priority this year. Lucy Wesson, Assistant Head Teacher at Barnard, organised their activities alongside their Social Inclusion Manager, Hilary Harmison. Lucy commented:

“We prioritise mental health as we are very aware of it’s importance. This year, we began with a whole school assembly, sharing the idea around Let’s Connect and what this means. The children are then taking part in mental health activities each afternoon (we have collapsed the timetable of the usual subjects). We have used Place2be and ELSA to source the different activities. As a school, we practise daily mindfulness every afternoon, across the full school. We value the impact this makes to our children’s well-being. Mrs Harmison is also our Mental Health Champion.”

Children and young people’s wellbeing

Alongside Children’s Mental Health Week, this week the Department for Education released a report ‘State of the nation 2022: children and young people’s wellbeing’. This is the DfE’s fourth State of the Nation report, focussing on trends in mental health and wellbeing over the 2021/22 academic year, when a range of recovery-focused activity was in place.

The data in the report indicates an inconsistent recovery of children and young people’s  wellbeing and mental health towards pre-pandemic levels by the end of the 2021/22 academic year. The percentage of children and young people reporting low happiness with their health appears to have increased in recent years.

While the report does not have a geographic breakdown of the data, it does discuss other student characteristics. Pupils who were eligible for free school meals were less likely to report being motivated to learn, being able to concentrate in class, feeling safe in school, and having a strong sense of belonging at school.

Also this week, the DfE released new guidance  that schools are expected to ensure regular attendance however do not need to “routinely” ask for medical evidence to authorise a pupil’s short term absences due to mental health reasons. However, for long term absences schools are advised that it ‘may be appropriate’ to seek medical evidence. Yesterday the Guardian reported children suffering mental health crises spent more than 900,000 hours in A&E in England last year seeking urgent and potentially life-saving help, with children as young as three years old visiting emergency departments for mental health support.

Understanding Children’s Mental Health in School

The Healthy MindED Commission, powered by Schools North East, published The Voice of the Pupil: Understanding Mental Health in Schools in December 2022. The study offers a unique way for schools to approach connecting to their students to properly understand the mental health needs of young people in their schools. Commission Chair Professor Dame Sue Bailey as ‘unique’ and ‘representing the most important body of evidence about children’s own views about their mental health, wellbeing, and resilience ever carried out in the UK’.

Head Teachers in the North East consistently cite child mental health problems as one of their uppermost concerns. Schools North East launched the first (and only) school-led commission into pupils’ mental health to address the worrying decline in children and young people’s mental health that school leaders have reported across the region.

This May, Schools North East will be supporting our region’s schools with our seventh Healthy MindED conference. The conference, which will take place at the Darlington Arena, will look at supporting students with challenging behaviour, the ongoing impact of the pandemic on mental health and wellbeing, as well as the perennial challenges that have been exacerbated.

To read more on the Voice of the Pupil study, click here.

Barnard Grove Primary School is a Schools North East Partner School. If you’d like to find out more about our Partner School Programme click here.

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