We spoke to 5 teachers about how they’re promoting good mental health within their schools. Leah Kellogg teaches PE at The Bemrose School, Jack Barlow is a PE teacher and the wellbeing lead at Philips High School in Whitefield, Elliot Bailey teaches PE at Sandringham School in St Albans, Guy Foster is a primary teacher at Thurlstone Primary School, and Scott Lycett teaches PE at Bedford High School.
Scott — I like to start lessons with a one- or five-minute run. To start with, nobody likes doing it, but once you’ve done it and got those endorphins going, it feels amazing! During the lockdown myself and another member of staff ran Zoom exercise sessions where we got the students to interact by requesting music. It really worked and got the students going, and we found that their theory work actually improved.
I also work with the Young Minds charity [one of the leading charities for young people’s mental health]. I started a school kick-up challenge with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of good mental health by achieving 30,000 kick-ups across the school in one month. Students would do a certain amount of kick-ups each day and take a selfie with their number and the hashtag #YoungMinds. A lot of the students were taking part every single day and we kept a tally of our numbers on the school’s social media accounts. Our local council promoted it and the press also took an interest and we ended up with around 12,000 young people joining in!
Leah — I’m really interested in the way we manage behaviour in the school, and sport definitely comes into that. It’s a great way to engage students, and things like lunchtime football clubs can reduce the drama on the playground.
Sport is also just a great way to keep things light-hearted. My students have faced stress and uncertainty during the pandemic, but sport just brings people together. They might have had a really stressful day at school, but then they’ve decided to go and have a game on the field. That relief and ability to have fun and forget about their stresses for an hour is something they might not be able to do in another lesson.
Elliot — Mental health is something that I always talk about in my lessons, especially the importance of staying active and positive. If a student is self-conscious and doesn’t think they’re very good at sport, their mental health can really suffer, and I want them to know that they don’t need to worry. It doesn’t matter if you can’t make it around the 800-metre track, it doesn’t matter if you win. It’s just good for you to run with a mate and have some fun.
I have a form group who I really see as a kind of ‘family’ within the school. During the first lockdown, I really wanted to maintain our close-knit relationship, so I set them little video tasks to record themselves showing off their skills. I sent round a video of myself skipping around my garden to a song, and they sent some amazing things back. Some of them were tap dancing or drumming in their living rooms, and one even did a Segway dog walk! When we all came back to school, I made a compilation of the videos and we watched it together — it felt like the last day of term before Christmas! I got so many emails from parents saying their kids had absolutely loved it.
Jack — This year I launched the Philips Positivity Podcast — our school podcast on mental health. I have a couple of friends that have their own podcasts, and I just felt they were a great way to reach out to lots of people. The good thing about the podcast is that it’s all relevant to our school. We’re talking to teachers that the students already know. I think sometimes students struggle to see their teachers as anything other than their teachers, but the podcast lets them hear personal stories about mental health and relationships.
It’s just about getting the message out there that everybody has mental health, everybody feels sad at times and that doesn’t make you different from anybody else. We received an email from a parent who said it was fantastic, as their child had never imagined that their teachers might also have struggled with the lockdown. With Covid-19, it’s been more important than ever to encourage people to have these conversations.
“It’s just about getting the message out there that everybody has mental health, everybody feels sad at times and that doesn’t make you different from anybody else.” — Jack Barlow
Guy — Whenever somebody breaks into a run, they always generally break into a smile straight away. I think when you’re physically active, something happens — a chemical reaction that immediately makes you feel better about things and feel better about life. I can’t think of many things where you gain so much as being part of a sports team. First of all, you’re being physically active. Secondly, you’re immediately making a group of friends.
Together you can learn how to deal with different types of people — whether it’s different coaches or teachers, and you learn strategies to get around difficult situations like when things aren’t going so well. You can then easily relate those reactions and experiences back to any part of life. Being physically active and being part of sports teams has made me who I am today, there’s no doubt about it. I’m so happy that I was born with a passion for sport. It’s helped me have the confidence to stand up in front of a group of children every day.
