FEATURE FOCUS: MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
each student’s approach to learning. Girls in particular see effort grades as a personal judgment and this is likely to do more harm than good. Looking at school reports from 30 or 40 years
ago, which were blunt, sometimes witty but also insulting, would undoubtedly shock most teachers and students today. The culture we live in today often leaves teachers nervous of being honest, resulting in waffle-filled politician’s speech. It is far more beneficial to both pupils and parents, who are often too busy to translate these polite messages anyway, is to be clear, genuine and accurate. SMART targets - specific, measurable, action,
relevant, and time related – are used by many employers to assess performance. We believe this is a far more effective method to give children specific targets and a time frame to achieve them in – after all this is the sort of feedback they will eventually receive in their professional lives.
Unrealistic expectations The Centre for Mental Health found that, rather than young people suffering from social media ‘addiction’, the mental wellbeing challenge is actually focused on unhealthy comparisons to others. The advent of image-sharing platforms like Instagram and Snapchat has led nine out of ten young teenage girls to say that they feel unhappy with how they look. With children struggling with the pressures
caused by unrealistic expectations of life from social media, I feel teachers and parents should place much more emphasis on helping pupils to set realistic ambitions of what they can achieve as individuals. Rather than bombarding children with
messages that they can do anything, which is absolutely unhelpful to kids with all the natural worries they already have, an approach around growth mindset focuses on how the school’s systems can change to help them to be more effective learners.
Emotionally useful language As a Catholic school, and a practising Catholic myself, it is unsurprising that attempts to improve the mental wellbeing of pupils has involved looking for answers from religion. However, what may not be expected is that much of the inspiration behind the Minerva approach to
growth mindset has been drawn from Buddhism. Prominent within this is in how staff use
language, with a focus on communicating in a way that builds the emotional intelligence of young people. Placing a strong emphasis on developing self-awareness, empathy, emotional control, and self-motivation is not only vital to improve academic ability but also to becoming a happy young adult. In practice, it is all about removing emotion
from the language used in schools. Describing a pupil’s ability or behaviour as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ does little to develop their emotional intelligence. Instead, staff must focus on creating an environment that is instrumental to help and support young people.
Honesty from teaching staff Encouraging pupils to remove the emotion from student-teacher relationships is also essential. It is an inevitable human reaction that people will agree and disagree on issues and occasionally personalities will clash. This type of relationship challenge will likely be a feature of most adult
lives, and can cause stress and anxiety, so developing coping strategies as early as possible can only be beneficial. With this in mind, our message to pupils is that
they should never try to avoid a teacher. It doesn’t matter if they do not get along with them, they will have knowledge and skills that can benefit their learning, so seek to use them. Of course, as a headmaster it is desirable that pupils have positive relationships with their teachers, and the vast majority do, but it is simply unrealistic to expect this across the board. It is important to say that progress is being
made in the education system and a healthier balance is appearing, with greater emphasis on research and evidence. Teachers are increasingly willing to listen, a hugely positive change from some of the authoritarian figures of my own school days, and this can only be beneficial for young people who are possibly facing the biggest societal pressures of any generation yet. Each person’s mental health and wellbeing is
unique, so it would be remiss to suggest that there is a one-size-fits-all approach to producing happy and confident young adults. However, the evidence points clearly towards the positive impact that adopting at least some of the characteristics of a growth mindset approach. Ambition is a great characteristic and it’s a
fantastic trait to encourage, but it is equally important to recognise that people have limitations. I firmly believe it is the responsibility of schools and teachers to refrain from overburdening young people with unrealistic expectations, whether that’s for sporting achievement, musical ability or academic success. From my own experiences of making changes
and adopting our Minerva programme, the impact on teachers, students and parents alike has been far stronger that we ever imagined. Although the programme will continually evolve to meet the requirements of subsequent year groups and teaching staff, I firmly believe that all parties benefit from a greater sense of wellbeing as a result of a growth mindset approach which places dialogue closer to reality.
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www.education-today.co.uk September 2019
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