Covid-19 Advice for School Leaders: Pt5: Well-being Issues

Consider how you are going to continue to support the emotional and physical well-being of students.

In planning for Covid-19 school closures, it is understandable to focus in the first instance on how to get academic work to students at the expense of the other important work that schools do throughout the year. However, it is particularly important that the school’s pastoral support work continues during this challenging time.

Kellett is part of the Positive Education movement so well-being is high on our agenda at the best of times. Here’s how we have responded so far to the school closure which is now in week 6.

What we are doing

• Form Tutors are meeting with their Tutor Groups every day via zoom to check in. This is helpful for preempting problems and enables swift response as a school.
• A fortnightly questionnaire for students where they can comment on how they are getting on with their home-learning and self-report on their own well-being (Scale 1-10). The Heads of House are checking in regularly with those reporting negative levels of well-being (those reporting 4 or less).
• One-to-one video-conference “check ins” (counselling sessions) are being offered to students reporting negatively. All students have the opportunity to request a “check in” and parents can refer their children.
• Heads of House have been proactively calling every family in our community.

Issues – things to think about.

1. The normal issues are still there: Schools play a significant role in supporting young people in normal times – these issues don’t just disappear because the school is closed. There will still be students and staff who are grieving because of a bereavement; or who are anxious because of the potential impact of their parent being diagnosed with cancer.
2. Beware the long-standing issues that take on a new complexion: Take, for example, the student who is on the verge of being a school refuser with anxiety issues and who is now in a situation that allows him to be absent from school for a sustained period of time. When school resumes, this student will require careful re-integration and monitoring. Or the child who is routinely absent because of a long-term illness or injury who has enjoyed the period of whole-school home-learning because she is actually receiving a greater level of support than she would otherwise be receiving when absent from school on medical grounds.
3. The new Coronavirus-related issues: The Covid-19 throws up a whole range of anxieties and practical issues with which the school counselling team are likely to have to deal.

• Medical – that someone close will catch the virus; staff who are pregnant or who have newly-born children feel particularly vulnerable as do those with elderly relatives;
• Financial: that a loved one will lose their livelihood because of the lack of business in the short-term, or the wider economic downturn.
• Family Events: that a wedding will not take place, and so on.
• Isolation: the pressures for staff or students working from home alone for a prolonged period of time.
• Cabin Fever: the pressure of some families all being at home trying to work around each other or a prolonged period of time.

In the international community these issues are compounded by the distance of being away from loved ones and the difficulties of travel and quarantine that might delay a return.

Student Well-being Activities

At Kellett, we have continued to put on a range of well-being activities throughout the closure. Our regular ‘Feel Good Fridays’ have moved online. So, in the last couple of weeks we have had:

• Feeling Connected – everyone wore red (staff in school – students at home/online)
• A lunchtime ‘Open Mic’ competition with participants around the world contributing to the live streamed event – some 800 of our community tuned in (A YouTube Live Broadcast – we used a mixing desk to bring in different feeds and send out a single broadcast).
• A Book Week event – online poetry recitals, book reviews, a ‘Micro-fiction’ story competition (1000 words or fewer).
• Kellett Infinite Positivity Playlist - a playlist on Spotify where each contributor says why they picked each track.

Wellbeing Resources

• Tes Webinar: How to support pupil, staff and parental wellbeing when your school is closed - outlining what we have done here at Kellett School
• Kellett Student Wellbeing Team Website
• Being Me: Mindfulness Tasks for kids - Kellett Mindfulness Videos - Sandra Bushnell's YouTube Site @sandrabushnell
• Positive Education Institute Wellbeing Resources for Remote Learning - Primary (5-12 Years Old)
• Positive Education Institute Free Wellbeing Resources for Remote Learning - Secondary (13-18 Years Old)

Don't forget the Physical

The PE department are producing a whole website of daily exercise workouts: Yoga, Hit Classes.

Here's a sample exercise video:

Staff Well-being Activities

We took the decision early on that our teachers and admin staff should be in school for all or part of the week either delivering ‘live learning’ or preparing lessons (making videos for the students etc.). This has proved an important decision because it allows us to have regular contact with the staff, to foster a team spirit and also to run a number of well-being activities in breaks, lunchtimes and after school.

A week’s programme looks like this:

Parents’ Well-being

Don’t forget the parents. Parents will be under a range of pressures themselves.

• Many will be trying to balance working from home with supporting home learning.
• Many will be worried about their jobs.
• Many will be worried out their children’s education, especially for those with children in crucial examination years.

Parents value that that someone from the school has taken time to contact them. Many value the opportunity just to talk.

Thanks to Matt Seddon and the Pastoral Team for their help in writing this article.

Other articles in the Covid-19 Advice for School Leaders Series

1. Pt1: Advice for School Business Managers:
2. Pt2 - What to Expect
3. Pt3 - Communications Strategy
4. Pt4 - Protocol for being allowed onto the school site.
5. Pt5 - Well-being Issues
6. Pt6 - Paperwork for Home-Learning
7. Pt7 - Pace Yourselves
8. Pt8 - Re-Opening