The Blackpool Boys and Girls Club

Children in stressed environments need resilience and emotional intelligence to deal with issues luckier children don’t have. Jed Sullivan explains how the lauded BBGC uses film, paintings and stories to build their inner strength.

Another week sees another report released damning the fortunes of everyone’s favourite seaside town. Blackpool – iconic in many minds for its Tower, promenade, Pleasure Beach and miles of beaches – continues to flounder at the bottom of so many league tables on social issues.

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      string(5780) "the whole child: where we value and promote development of emotional and social competencies, mental health and wellbeing alongside academic attainment.The UK education system is one of increasingly high stakes, low trust accountability for schools combined with funding decreasing in real terms.6 Cuts are forcing decisions on what schools can deliver for their young people and creating a high-pressure environment for pupils, teachers and leaders. Critically, given accountability incentives, the first thing to go is perceived ‘nice to haves’; those things not being focused on in measurement and data. Often these are activities which develop social and emotional skills and wellbeing, such as extra-curricular activities, pastoral care or beyond-curriculum learning. Head teachers have spoken to the FEA about the ‘need to be “brave” in order to continue to deliver what is best for young people, in spite of the system’. Added to this, cuts to early years and community services outside of schools are placing increasing pressure for schools to ‘fill the gap’ in extra-curricular and social and emotional development for young people.The Fair Education Alliance argues that this is resulting in a systemic gap in the development of essential social and emotional skills in young people, particularly impacting the most disadvantaged pupils.This is not an either/or between academic attainment and wellbeing. Social and emotional competencies are needed to be an effective learner and are essential as protective factors for good mental health. These skills are critical for young people to be happy, healthy, economically productive members of society. It is essential that they are valued alongside attainment. Moreover, these ‘soft skills’ are being recognised by industry as increasingly important for the future workforce as our business members attest. David Soanes, UK Country Head for UBS, writes in our Report Card that ‘In a society where what is needed for the world of work is undergoing rapid and dramatic change, businesses must contribute a great deal to the thinking and practice of personal and skills development for students. For all these reasons the work of the FEA remains more relevant than ever.’We continue to support the Skills Builder Framework, a shared language for skills development in schools, and are committed to highlighting, sharing and disseminating best practice in providing ‘rounded education’ across school networks and practitioners, so leaders can learn from each other and increase adoption of this type of approach to education. We will be working with the Every Child Included in Education campaign on this alongside their priorities to promote kindness and wellbeing and increase recognition of parents, carers and wider communities.Third, we need joined up support for all post-16 destination routes: to give every child a choice about their future. All young people should have the knowledge, skills and awareness to make the right decisions about their next step after completing compulsory education and have fair access to the many different routes, including further education, employment-based training or higher education. Currently the landscape around careers advice and guidance is complex. Circa £800m investment is made in widening participation and access to higher education and there are a wide range of different employability initiatives to help young people learn about the world of work. However, this advice is fragmented and comes from multiple different sources. It is also not consistently getting to every child in every school; there is a ‘lottery’ effect of whether employers/universities happen to be working with schools in that area. Importantly, advice on non-HE routes (e.g. further education, technical education or apprenticeship routes) have been significantly less prominent.In this last year, we welcomed government policy for a dedicated careers leader in every school. However, there has been concern about the practicality of this, given the complexity described above, coupled with stretched capacity in schools. Schools and careers advisors are being asked to navigate and provide support to students on an ever-changing world of work and the endless education/career pathways available to young people, on top of an already significant workload. In this context, young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are not being equipped with the awareness of opportunities available to them beyond school or the tools to help them reach those destinations – with the result that those from disadvantaged backgrounds are still six times as likely to be recorded as not in education, training or employment after age 16.We want to see more collaboration between employers and post-16 education providers in the way they provide information to schools about the range of options available and how they are interconnected. Best practice in this area has been set out by the eight Gatsby benchmarks,7 and we are committed enabling schools and leaders to implement this and learn from each other. In this way we want to ensure every child gets consistent quality advice and guidance no matter which school they attend or which area they live in.These are priorities not just for secondary schools, but right across education, from early years provision through to leavers at 18. They will be the focus areas for our projects over the coming year, but we cannot do this alone. We are committed to working to achieve this vision but we need a shared commitment as"
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Inclusion

Imagining the Closing of the Gap

4 Dec 2018

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      string(5432) "result in mood disorders includingdepression, anxiety, impulsive aggression and substance abuse. These individuals showedless activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex, an area in the brain thought to regulatenegative emotion.Research suggests that lower socioeconomic status is often associated with a lackof hope and optimism in children. Children will be influenced strongly by their parents’attitudes to the world and if exposed to attitudes of financial hardships and struggles,with no hope of the situation improving, will carry those feelings into the classroom. In theface of these more immediate family financial problems, the child will be less likely to seelearning as important.The Good Childhood Report 2014, published by The Children’s Society, explores therelationships between children’s wellbeing and other factors in their lives – their activitiesand behaviours, parental wellbeing, parenting and household economic factors. Whenasked about happiness or life satisfaction, children in households living in poverty tendedto have lower wellbeing than more affluent peers. Children living in families where no-oneis in paid work also tend to have lower than average wellbeing.The report authors recognise that children’s living standards have a strong influenceon their lives. 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Special Needs

The rules of engagement

11 Dec 2014

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Leadership Briefing Issue 8.12(96)"
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      string(5190) "Leadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.MENTAL HEALTH AND BEHAVIOUR INSCHOOLSKeywordsMental health,behaviour,schools, pupils,problems,resilience,medicalprofessionals,training,supervision,counselling,teachersSummaryAll pupils will benefit from learning and developing in a well ordered school environment thatfosters and rewards good behaviour and sanctions poor and disruptive behaviour. This guidehelps schools in England better spot pupils with mental issues. Launched by the Government,it sets out the powers and duties for school staff and approaches they can adopt to managebehaviour in their schools.Certain individuals and groups are more at risk of developing mental health problems than others.Risk factors are cumulative. Children exposed to multiple risks such as social disadvantage, familyadversity and cognitive or attention problems are much more likely to develop behavioural problems.Longitudinal analysis of data for 16,000 children suggested that boys with five or more risk factorswere almost eleven times more likely to develop conduct disorder under the age of ten than boys withno risk factors. Girls of a similar age with five or more risk factors were nineteen times more likely todevelop the disorder than those with no risk factors.Seemingly against all the odds, some children exposed to significant risk factors develop intocompetent, confident and caring adults. An important key to promoting children’s mental health istherefore an understanding of the protective factors that enable children to be resilient when theyencounter problems and challenges.The role that schools play in promoting the resilience of their pupils is important, particularly so forsome children where their home life is less supportive. School should be a safe and affirming placefor children where they can develop a sense of belonging and feel able to trust and talk openly withadults about their problems.Key Points: ■ In order to help their pupils succeed, schools have a role to play in supporting them to be resilientand mentally healthy. There are a variety of things that schools can do, for all their pupils and forthose with particular problems, to offer that support in an effective way. ■ Where severe problems occur schools should expect the child to get support elsewhere as well,including from medical professionals working in specialist Child and Adolescent Mental HealthServices (CAMHS), voluntary organisations and local GPs. ■ Schools should ensure that pupils and their families participate as fully as possible in decisionsWeek Commencing 30th June 2014http://www.west-info.eu/files/Mental_health_and_behaviour_in_schools.pdfhttp://www.west-info.eu/files/Mental_health_and_behaviour_in_schools.pdfLeadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.and are provided with information and support. The views, wishes and feelings of the pupil andtheir parents should always be considered. ■ Schools can use the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to help them judge whetherindividual pupils might be suffering from a diagnosable mental health problem and involve theirparents and the pupil in considering why they behave in certain ways. ■ MindEd, a free online training tool, is now available to enable school staff to learn more aboutspecific mental health problems. This can help to sign post staff working with children toadditional resources where mental health problems have been identified. Counselling MindEd,which is part of MindEd, is also available to support the training and supervision of counsellingwork with children and young people. ■ There are things that schools can do – including for all their pupils, for those showing early signsof problems and for families exposed to several risk factors – to intervene early and strengthenresilience, before serious mental health problems occur. ■ Schools can influence the health services that are commissioned locally through their local Healthand Wellbeing Board – Directors of Children’s Services and local Healthwatch are statutorymembers. ■ There are national organisations offering materials, help and advice. Schools should look at whatprovision is available locally to help them promote mental health and intervene early to supportpupils experiencing difficulties. Help and information about evidence-based approaches isavailable from a range of sources.WEB LINKMental Health And Behaviour In Schoolshttp://www.west-info.eu/files/Mental_health_and_behaviour_in_schools.pdf"
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Leadership

Mental Health And Behaviour In Schools

26 Jun 2014

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      string(5784) "think about it as wider than academic learning. We should have a whole-school approach to pupil wellbeing for every child (remember the snakes and ladders analogy – you can go up and you can also go down in terms of social mobility).  Pupils need to be able to manage what is happening in their lives. They need to be able to relate what’s happening in home and school.  As a school, we need to focus on transitions from school to school or, more importantly from year group to year group, to understand what progress every child has made, to understand what support means in terms of peer to peer and engagement of those children in wider activities. If a child is not included in one year of their education, there is a significant possibility that this will continue into the next.Ultimately, we need to enable children and young people to feel that they belong – that they belong in the school and that they belong in a learning environment. Irrespective of where they started in terms of their learning journey, they need to know that they can succeed, and a big part of this is building in parent and carer engagement.  Out of school enrichment activities and reading at home play a key part. We know that achievement in life will be increased if there is pre-school engagement between parents and teachers, enrichment activities that are wider than reading and wider than learning at home. All of these will increase attainment.Inclusion means inclusion – middle attainersThere is a danger that we focus entirely on one group when we talk about social mobility. Actually, what we should be doing is focusing on everyone, as the following demonstrates this includes middle attainers, often the ‘forgotten group’.   Middle attainers on SEN support can be a forgotten group in schools; with teachers focusing on stretching the most able and raising the bar for the lowest achieving 20%, those in the middle with additional needs fail to make expected progress. At a national level, the profile of those on SEN support shows the three most common additional needs as moderate learning difficulties (27%), speech, language and communication needs (21%) and social and emotional and mental health issues (17%); additional needs are likely to overlap within these categories.Those on SEN Support are also more likely to come from socio- economic disadvantage than their peers without an identified SEN and are less likely to move out of this category during their schooling. But it does not have to be like this. An inclusive approach with frequent and rigorous interrogation of pupil data improves both progress and attainment for children and young people on SEN Support. This is of particular importance for those whose prior attainment is somewhere in the middle. If they fail to make the expected progress by KS2, they start secondary school behind and are less likely to ‘catch up’ by KS4. At 16 they move on and may not have the skills needed to gain employment or the minimum qualifications needed for further education or training; instead they repeat the same learning with a post 16 provider. Ofsted is quite clear, in their review of SEND in 2010, that education providers which achieved the best outcomes for their pupils/students with SEND had high aspirations for their learning and focused on enabling them to become as independent as possible; this has not changed today. Getting the best outcomes for those in the middle attaining bracket on SEN support means school leaders and teachers asking questions about their progress and attainment: what challenges do they face in learning? What challenges do they face in accessing learning? Where are the gaps? Comparisons can be made with pupils/students with similar prior attainment, using national, local and school level data sets. Middle attainers should have support to progress from the middle.Parent carer engagement – supporting your child’s learningWe must ask a question of parents or carers: How can they encourage learning at home?    An academic colleague, Charles Desforges, a Professor of Education, has looked at the difference it makes if parents and carers are involved in their child’s learning. His research shows that a parent has a greater impact on a 7-year-old child’s learning than school does. Parents and carers reading to their child has a significant impact. Listening to their child read has an even greater impact. And supporting their child as they learn to read has an even greater impact still. What are the most important things parents and carers can do at home to ensure that their child is engaged in learning?First of all, parents and carers need to talk and listen to their children, making time to talk and engage as well as reading to children or listening to them read. Parents and carers are encouraged to have fun, not just with literacy, but also with maths, and to discuss what happened at school that day, without accepting a simple ’it was fine’ as an answer.  But parents and carers also have to get involved with homework with the child – not doing it for the child but encouraging homework in lots of different ways.  This would involve creating a space where children can work and making this as exciting and stimulating as possible. Making sure that children have the right equipment, keeping to a schedule for ‘work’ and praising and rewarding in a balanced way helps.  In addition, working alongside children and taking them to exciting places – many of these are free"
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Inclusion

Every Child Included

20 Jun 2017

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