'Head of wellbeing' role should be in every secondary

Tailored emotional and physical wellbeing support should be given in UK secondary schools, a report by not-for-profit UK healthcare organisation, Nuffield Health has revealed.
 
With recent news from the government that an additional £2 billion will be invested to fund specialist mental health teams in schools to offset the growing levels of obesity in children, Nuffield Health has identified ways in which physical and emotional wellbeing provisions can be established for both students and teachers.
 
The ‘Improving wellbeing in schools’ report shares the findings from a pilot that installed a Head of Wellbeing at Wood Green School in Witney, Oxfordshire.
 
The Head of Wellbeing from Nuffield Health worked closely with students and staff to assess emotional and physical wellbeing priorities and develop a targeted, responsive programme of initiatives and activities for the whole school.
 
Initiatives included making water more widely available and offering healthy eating options, enhancing existing provision through extra resources or more accessible sessions, and running classes in mental wellbeing techniques, such as mindfulness and resilience.
 
By embedding these tactics, the pilot achieved a marked improvement in healthy eating habits and an increase in the number of staff using gym facilities. By implementing this structure, wellbeing improved for both teachers and pupils within the school.
 
As a result of the pilot, wellbeing is now one of Wood Green School’s six values and timetabled within the school curriculum. Head teacher, Robert Shadbolt, made a crucial decision to invest budget in maintaining a wellbeing role as a part-time post after the completion of the project.
 
Robert Shadbolt, Head Teacher at Wood Green Secondary School said: “I don’t believe there’s a single child in this school who hasn’t thought about the importance of what they eat, what exercise they do, what they do with their screen time, the importance of good mental health and how they achieve that.
 
“Having someone whose specific role it is to coordinate, deliver and drive the wellbeing programme, rather than trying to combine this with a member of staff’s other teaching commitments, is critical to its success.”
 
Using the insights from this pilot, Nuffield Health has developed swap, the Schools Wellbeing Activity Programme. The programme is free and offers evidence-based lessons that can be delivered by Nuffield Health experts, to support local schools in their area, either as a 6-week programme or individual sessions.
                                                                                                                                             
Following the success of the pilot and development of the free swap programme, Nuffield Health now aims to reach 50,000 young people by 2020 through partnerships with schools across the UK.