These are clearly very unusual and difficult times. Not only is it a physical challenge of enduring the virus together, but it can also be a very emotionally challenging time for many of us around the world. While we are in self isolation, we are often reminded to retain a healthy lifestyle by regularly exercising and avoiding the temptation to indulge in unhealthy foods. However, it is equally if not more important to take care of our mental health, as well as our physical health. The loss of life is a sensitive topic, yet in a time when we hear of it daily through news reports, and when the spread of news can be fuelled immensely through social media, many of us are rightly feeling anxious, confused, fearful and countless other emotions that we may have never hoped to experience. In light of this, we must help those who may be most vulnerable mentally, but also those who just need light reassurance to help them through these times.

One heavy influence to raise awareness of providing mental health support is my school’s Pupil Wellbeing Lead, Ms Samantha Banner. In a bid to further understand her role, Ms Banner kindly offered to take part in a remotely done interview.

Question: What does your role as the Pupil Wellbeing Lead involve?

Answer: It is a varied role which is constantly developing. The specification of the role includes:

  • ensuring the services we offer the students are used well and that students have access to these
  • liaising with the pupil support managers in each key stage and also the directors of each key stage and heads of year to ensure we are supporting students in the best way possible
  • to ensure we follow up with bullying and harassment claims and that these are recorded well
  • to ensure we keep good records in relation to the wellbeing of students
  • to identify students who don’t take part in co-curricular activities and try to help identify what they might like to do
  • to help to monitor those students who we deem vulnerable or potentially vulnerable and ensure the support is in place for them, both to help them achieve academically, and also to make sure they are supported pastorally. Vulnerable students are those who qualify for the Pupil Premium bursary, looked after children, those who are identified as involved in bullying incidents, those with SEND (special educational needs and disability) and those who have mental health problems or problems at home. The students on our radar so to speak will change over time.

On a practical level, this largely involves speaking to students. This can be to catch up with them, especially if they are students who we are already aware of needing extra support, or students who I have recently been made aware of possibly needing support. There can be a number of reasons why they come to our attention; a friend raises concerns, a parent , a teacher of form tutor notices something, or the students themselves asks to speak to someone. I then have to communicate with the rest of the Pastoral Team, discuss any students where a concern is raised and make sure we keep records of the conversations and actions we take. I also liaise with the school counsellor, nurse and child well-being practitioner who come to school weekly. I often spend time going through our records to make sure they are up to date and checking with my colleagues, especially in regards to any bullying incidents.

I will also speak to colleagues about information given to students and parents in assemblies or recently the advice we gave to students and parents once school closed about the support that is available. This has included speaking at parent’s information evenings too about mental health.

Other things I do happen less regularly. Recently, I asked the Year 7s to fill in a questionnaire about co-curricular activities they have done since they started and then used their responses to try and instate some different clubs or ensure there are different clubs on offer. I also respond to students asking to set up clubs and have helped a few get going this year.

I have attended a few training days this year- one was a bereavement course and I am now looking to change and cement the guidelines which we go by at school to help students dealing with bereavement.  I have also instigated meetings for the young carers in Key Stage 3 to help connect young carers and support them where we can.

I have also recently been to training to connect teachers, counsellors, mental health nurses and doctors etc. in Sutton, arranged by Sutton CAMHS. Although a second meeting was delayed due to Covid 19, I look forward to implementing some new ideas at school once we get back.

 

Question: What do you find rewarding about this job?

Answer: Knowing that you are making a difference to someone's life is very rewarding. To speak to a young person who is going through something awful can be hard, but to get them help and speak to them weeks or months later to find that they are doing better is very rewarding. I always say that if I only ever help one student then I’m happy and my role is important, but in reality, we help so many students at school who are finding things difficult.

We have tried (not just me I must say, the whole pastoral team supported by the Senior Leadership Team) over the years to make mental health something that people aren’t scared to discuss, and to normalize talking about feelings. To know that teenage boys, who are not known for talking about their feelings, listen to this and act on it to help their friends is also incredibly rewarding. The statistics surrounding men, mental health and suicide don’t make nice reading and I hope Wilson’s is making a difference to the way our students view mental health and will encourage them at some point in their life to speak out if they need help.

Being able to give the power to students to change the school, and to see how enthusiastic about this they are is very exciting and rewarding. 

Question: What inspired you to take on this role?

Answer: I have always been interested in the pastoral support that schools can offer its students. This goes back to when I was at school-I remember being on a school trip in Year 8 and spending the week helping to care for a student with special educational needs. Whilst others weren’t very kind, I made sure she was up and dressed and ready for the day’s activities. I guess I didn’t think much of it at the time but now I realize that helping others was something that was natural to me even when I was young.

It transpired that many students who needed support were needing support with their mental health and went on specific mental health training, read around the subject and found that offering students this sort of support was truly where my interests lie.

When I started to train to be a teacher and had placements in schools it was clear to me that pastoral support interested me. I enjoyed getting to know students in form time, and learning that their experiences at home, and whether they were generally happy greatly affected their experiences at school. I also realized that schools, where teachers are seeing students for many hours a day, and building relationships, are the perfect place to offer them the help and support they need.

 It also being a new role I suppose was attractive; it meant I could shape it the way I wanted and hopefully embed some ideas and establish some really positive guidelines, policy and systems.

The chance to take this role, where I wasn’t connected to a Key Stage and could truly focus on a whole school mindset in regards to wellbeing was very appealing.

Question: What challenges do you find with this role and how do you manage them?

Answer: The role can be rather upsetting at times. I discuss self-harm, suicide and depression regularly and this can be hard to deal with. Every teacher takes their work home but taking home these issues can be hard and I must make sure that I am looking after my own mental health by speaking about these things with my colleagues.

Furthermore, in the vast majority of cases everyone is receptive and open but on occasion, students or parents don't want to engage and this can be frustrating. But it's all about making sure students know that support is available and being hopeful that they will eventually get the help we think they need.

Any teacher who does pastoral work will tell you how they would appreciate more time. There are often many things you would like or need to get done whilst also being a full-time classroom teacher. A lot of the role therefore rests around time management and learning what to prioritize.

Question: What do you hope to achieve in the future in regards to this role?

Answer: There were hopes I had for the end of this academic year which might now have to change slightly because of the circumstances. However, I still hope to achieve…

  • To change the bullying policy at school to include specific LGBT bullying guidelines.
  • To have a refined definition of bullying, decided on by students, which is easily accessible and on display.
  • To establish clear guidelines on how we help to work with children who have suffered bereavement and young carers.
  • I have wanted to address how we encourage students to kick back and ensure they do activities that help their mental health. I am hoping the emphasis that has been out on these sorts of activities in the recent circumstances will help us to instigate more of these at school as I know I share this view with many of my colleagues.
  • There will also be a new wellbeing prefect next year so I shall have a sixth former to help and advise and I hope this further helps to get the positive mental health message out there, and might mean some of those things I feel I don’t have time for can happen!
  • Although Covid 19 has cut this short, we also are implementing the Rainbow Scheme, which involves working together to deliver assemblies, make posters and ensure the library has some more LGBT literature.
  • Finally, I shall be one of the deputy safe guarding leads as of September. I hope having more knowledge of Child Protection will further help me understand more about the difficulties students face, and mean I can make better decisions about how we can help them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                As a closing remark, she stated: I think we are incredibly lucky to have a leadership team who are fully supportive of wellbeing in school. I never feel like we have to prove how good the work we do is and always have the full support of the whole school. I therefore hope to continue to ensure positive mental health is promoted amongst staff, students and parents.  I know that my colleagues are supportive of all we do and I think I would like to ensure more people are more confident and more knowledgeable about mental health issues.

By Krishna Mahendrakar, Wilson’s School (With the support of Ms Banner, Wilson’s School)