Improving pupils’ emotional wellbeing

Information about the school

Ysgol y Strade is a bilingual comprehensive school that provides education for pupils from 11-18 years old, in Carmarthenshire local authority. The school is situated near the coast, on the western side of Llanelli. There are 1,120 pupils on roll, 192 of whom are in the sixth form.

The school’s catchment area extends along the south east coast of Carmarthenshire, from Fforest and Hendy in the east, to Kidwelly in the west. A majority of pupils come from Llanelli and the surrounding villages, and 17.3% of pupils live in the 20% most disadvantaged areas in Wales. 

Ten primary schools feed into the school.  Seven point eight per cent (7.8%) of pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is lower than the national average for secondary schools of 16.4%.

Most pupils are from white ethnic backgrounds. Around 40% of pupils come from English-speaking homes, but all pupils are able to speak Welsh to first language standard.

Ysgol y Strade is an inclusive school with a homely and friendly environment.  Safeguarding its young people is one of the school’s priorities.  

Context and background to the effective or innovative practice

The school’s leaders realised that the demands on pastoral staff to deal with issues relating to wellbeing, and specifically mental health, were increasing significantly year-on-year.  As a result, it became obvious that a number of staff lacked the confidence to deal with these issues effectively.  This was highlighted further when scrutinising the number of referrals that were sent to the school counsellor.  There was a waiting list of around 7 weeks to see the counsellor, and this was due mainly to mental stress and work pressures having a significant effect on pupils’ health and emotional wellbeing.  In addition, the pressure of work on the inclusion unit officer was increasing significantly as a result of pupils who were unable to cope with social situations and relationships with friends, and who were unaware of how to deal with their emotions effectively.

The most significant factor to the school was the effect that this had on learning.  As a result of social issues between pupils, often on social media websites outside of school, worry and anxiety were being brought into the classroom with them.  Pupils were often unable to concentrate effectively as a result of their anxiety and their lack of ability to deal with feelings and emotions.  This would often manifest itself in a sudden decline in behaviour and frequent disagreements between pupils. 

With these issues in mind, and in order to raise the profile and ensure that everyone engaged with the concept, the leadership team ensured that emotional health and wellbeing were given whole-school recognition as a priority in the improvement plan.  As part of the professional learning plan during this time, members of staff took part in attachment training and focused on ‘Why does bad behaviour occur?’.  The theory was that focussing on training pupils to deal with their emotions would help to solve behavioural problems.   

Description of the nature of the strategy or activity

At the start of the project, the school invested in emotion coaching for a member of teaching staff who was keen to develop knowledge and understanding of this issue through action research.  This training developed into effective networking between Ysgol y Strade and another nearby secondary school.

In became clear that in order to broaden this emotion coaching, the school council and committees would need to be included in order for it to have the greatest effect on pupils and on behaviour as a whole.  As a result of this, the sixth form established an emotional health and wellbeing committee.  A group of sixth-form pupils were trained as emotion mentors, in addition to receiving training on how to deal with their own emotions.  Sixth-form pupils provided ‘Saib a Symud’ (‘PausePoints’) emotion coaching to Year 7 tutor groups over a 6-week period, as a starting point.  This was extended to Years 8 and 9 as part of the ‘Curriculum Enrichment’ activities at the end of the academic year.

All pupils in Year 7 have a mentor in Year 10 who helps with transition and settling at the school.  These mentors, along with Year 12 pupils who are on the committee, have been trained and visit the primary schools as part of the transition process, and present what they do to parents and teachers.  This activity is also beneficial to pupils in terms of developing their social and communication skills. 

In order to spread the message further, a number of sessions were held to present the information and methodology to staff through teacher meetings and an INSET day for all staff.  A digital resource was developed in the whole-school cloud to share information with staff and ensure support for them throughout the year.

This work was developed further to encompass provision for mindfulness and a focus on work.  The foundation that had been laid by the emotion coaching informed the plans for this project.  Pupils were keen to create a resource that helped other pupils to apply the principles of mindfulness and controlling their emotions in order to work more effectively.  By working with individuals outside the school, the school has now piloted calming software (‘Calm Cloud’) and developed resources and guidelines in order to familiarise with mindfulness strategies.

What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?

Referrals to the wellbeing officer, in addition to referrals to the counsellor, have reduced significantly following the training and, in particular, the use of ‘PausePoints’ and ‘Calm Cloud’.  Staff who are associated with the wellbeing posts are seeing fewer pupils who are unable to deal with emotional difficulties that hinder effective learning.

A learner’s voice video, which is part of the evaluation process, shows clearly that the training has had a positive effect.  Pupils express that staff are much more aware of how to deal with situations.  A large number of pupils say that ‘PausePoints’ and the calming software are very useful and mean that the class settles much quicker and concentrates much better.  This is most obvious in the lesson after lunchtime. 

Staff are very positive about the effect of these techniques, particularly with pupils of lower ability and less motivated pupils.  The mindset of trying to understand the background and emotion behind the behaviour is particularly powerful when discussing with pupils.

How have you shared your good practice?

Co-operation with other schools

This work has derived from working with local schools when developing the training.  Other schools are keen to trial aspects of the scheme and have met with teachers from Ysgol y Strade to gain information.  The school works closely with the family of primary schools, and this project has sparked an interest from a number of these schools.  A number of them already use the same kind of systems and are keen to spread the message.  The school is planning to develop this aspect further during the next academic year.

Presentation to the region

This work was presented as part of a training day that was organised by the ERW region for other secondary and primary schools.  This day was a great success and it was noted that others were interested in moving along the same lines.