Leadership for Mental Wellbeing in the Secondary School

Implementing Whole School Strategies

Shirley Billson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000506167
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Liderazgo en educación

Leadership for Mental Wellbeing in the Secondary School is an introduction to a set of simple shifts you can enact to make your work more rewarding, and your school a flagship of excellence.

Full of practical tools and proven strategies this book draws on a combination of research and experience to empower you to make confident changes on your own terms that are suitable for you and the unique circumstances of your school.

No matter what stage of your career, this book will help you:

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• influence disenchanted and overloaded teaching staff to feel motivated and valued again (and improve the budgetary bottom line in the process)

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• increase pupil confidence and resilience, preventing deeper mental health problems down the line

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• practise bold leadership and deliver on what you really came into teaching for – preparing rounded, confident, individuals for life

Emphasising whole-person and whole-school approaches, this book is for any school leader looking to transform how they, their staff and their students feel about and cope with the day-to-day challenges and demands placed upon them.

Chapter 1
The way it isA cauldron for chronic stress

DOI: 10.4324/9780429353420-1

Like you, I am passionate about helping young people thrive as well-rounded, ‘whole’ people. This has to encapsulate building positive mental health, because long-standing evidence shows that mental health problems which begin in childhood continue in to adulthood Which means any individual gains in educational attainment, skill or knowledge, will be, at best, diminished by mental health limitations. At worst, they will impact on a person’s ability to secure future education or employment worthy of them, to form positive long-term relationships and to be happy and successful on their terms. Ever.

Long-term impact

A growing body of evidence, mainly from high-income countries, has shown that there is a strong socio-economic gradient in mental health, with people of lower socio-economic status having a higher likelihood of developing and experiencing mental health problems

see www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health-statistics-poverty

Results of the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a continuing, multidisciplinary longitudinal study, show a strong unfavourable correlation between childhood conduct disorder and

• qualifications and employment
• relationships and family formation
• health and disability by age 33

(Source: The Mental Health Foundation, Lifetime Impacts. Report of a seminar organised by the Office of Health Economics and the Mental Health Foundation, April 2004. See www.mentalhealth.org.uk/sites/default/files/lifetime_impacts.pdf.)

Education or health responsibility?

The question, you might ask, reasonably, is whether the responsibility for the required improvements falls within the remit of education or health. For me, the answer is both. It is both unhelpful and, arguably, damaging for us, as a society, to separate responsibility for mental well-being and academic success as if, in some way, we could isolate parts of the human psyche, such that they have no impact on other parts.

A sense of identity, belonging, self-esteem, confidence and self-belief are the cornerstones of good mental health and a happy life. It isn’t acceptable to simply enable academic success and think that’s good enough, because this is no better than the overzealous sports coach, who focuses so intently on winning the game or the race that the welfare of an athlete plays second fiddle.

Deep down you know this, but do your actions as a school leader actually reflect this?

Why grit isn’t synonymous with mental well-being

Fortunately for me, I did have a kind of ‘grit’ that got me through it; however, despite the positive publicity that ‘grit’ gets, it isn’t ‘grit’ that’s needed. That’s because grit is sometimes just another way of describing avoidance or suppression, and too many people become skilled at pretending it’s all okay and even convince themselves that they really are when they’re not. You see this very early on with young people. This book is not about short-term fixes. It is, instead, devoted to enabling you, your staff and your students to perform better, and feel better about life for the long term.

For me – and probably you – getting by or surviving isn’t really what we want from life, or what we want for our young people. What we all need, in order to live and contribute to our fullest potential, is self-belief, self-esteem, confidence and a mindset for growth. This is a toolset that lasts for life, not just for schooldays!

My own sporting, relationship and academic potential were marred for too many years because no one ever taught me about the value of emotional intelligence, or confidence, or self-esteem, or a growth mindset. ¹ I am aware that many people in education in the United Kingdom don’t ‘believe’ in a growth mindset, like it’s some kind of cult religion, rather than a valuable contribution to understanding psychological well-being. However, for me, there are some valuable takeaways if you take the time to forget the label and dig deep to understand what useful learning lies within this, which I’ll refer to within the book.

Mental ill health: prevention vs. intervention

Everyone talks about mental health. Yet, most of the time they’re really talking about mental ill health. The focus of intent for solutions and ways to improve the situation are all about managing, treating or preventing mental ill health. Like molehills, though, more and more examples of mental ill health in young people are cropping up on a seemingly daily basis; self-harm, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addiction, depression, body dysmorphia, to name a few. Other ‘conditions’ will no doubt have been reported in the press and clinicians will continue to pathologise stress-related problems as something bigger. Which is not to suggest I’m trivialising the severity of any of these conditions. On the contrary, they are, in my view, distressing symptoms of wider ills within our society, some of which I intend to be bold enough to address within the confines of this book. However, because the emphasis is on mental ill health and the wide variety of specific conditions, it can be easy to get caught up in it. As an education professional, you may find yourself being asked to respond differently to each of these fresh problems as they assert themselves.

Even though it is well known that poor mental health affects performance, secondary school solutions are rarely anything more than a mixed bag of piecemeal add-ons.

Understandably, as a busy head, you may delegate the responsibility for sourcing solutions and delivering relevant teaching, usually to someone on your existing teaching staff. You may designate a mental health lead – or appoint specific individuals to counsel, coach and support the pupils in your care. You provide good, old-fashioned pastoral care, only now it seems to be on steroids.

Homespun solutions proliferate, some of which can be pretty impressive. However, it isn’t systematic and it depends on the energy and commitment of a dedicated few. This means it’s hard to replicate. When key people leave, successful ‘systems’ flounder, stagnate or die.

The original pastoral care you had in place may seem insufficient, stretched at the seams, to manage the scale and severity of mental ill health problems now presented. So you task your team with suggestions for bolstering it and you send members of the senior leadership team (SLT) to conferences and training, so they can impart fresh learning on exactly how to improve the way your school manages the problem (without too much added expense). Those fortunate enough to attend the training are expected to distil their learning into knowledge they can transfer to colleagues. This reflects the wider pattern of education.

Great teaching rests too often in the hands of dedicated individuals, not great leaders. Unsurprisingly, great mental health education also rests in the hands of dedicated individuals, not great leaders. Worse still, some school leaders actually hinder well-being initiatives by limiting their application beyond Year 10. After all, time spent on well-being is ‘spare’ time, better used for increased General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) teaching. The thinking being, that pupils’ exam performance and outcomes beyond the school gates, are always better enhanced by more subject teaching and not by greater emphasis on teaching young people how to use their minds more effectively for long-term learning and resilience.

Mental health difficulties amongst young people, including self-harm and suicide, are high profile and on the increase (NHS DIGITAL, 2018 ² ), with under-resourcing from the National Health Service (NHS) to deal with this. Parents and schools experience the fallout, with secondary schools expected to effectively identify, support and manage young people with mental health problems. Often, head teachers, parents and young people feel afraid, ill-equipped and, in some cases, resentful.

Is your agenda out of alignment?

Yet whilst much gnashing of teeth and hand-wringing is devoted to questioning the ‘right’ thing to do to stem this tsunami of mental health crises in young people, a conversation with almost any teacher – or, more likely, any ex-teacher – will tell you that too few secondary schools put mental well-being at the top of the agenda. Despite the fact that rising mental ill health in young people has obvious short-term impacts on exam performance, attendance and behaviour, all of which are significant data measures of success, the relentless demand for data continues.

School management, instead, is dominated by spreadsheets, grades and percentage pass rates. Although there may be a box checked that confirms there is a mental health policy, available on the school website, there is little evidence of a powerful mental well-being strategy at the heart of many a school culture. Mental well-being can seem like a nice to have, but not a must have. If you can’t data gather it, you can’t do anything about it – or so it can seem.

I believe it is no coincidence that much of the teaching profession is claiming underfunding, overburdened workloads and poor appreciation – and they are leaving the profession in droves. Students are under pressure, teachers are under pressure. There seems to be little room for innovation, creativity, flexibility and, dare I say it, fun, in the classroom – at least not beyond Year 10. Teachers and students are straitjacketed and shoehorned into a way of working not designed for individuals, but for number crunching.

Mental poverty (see p. 15) seems to have become a natural by-product of modern life and the way we live it. The therapeutic, pharmaceutical and healthcare answers we are being offered do nothing but provide a sticking plaster over the crack in the dam that is close to bursting.

Why? In my opinion, it is a clashing combination of 20th-century thinking – which meant that educational achievement would enable us to be in command of our own economic destiny – and the 21st-century explosion of the internet and social media, demonstrating that economic freedoms can be won in other ways than movement through an educational or professional hierarchy. Education has become no guarantee of work, security or income. In this brave new world, we are also discovering that economic freedom may not be the only answer we seek.

It’s possible that your definitions of mental well-being are out of alignment too. These days, teachers and journalists may talk about ‘grit’ and ‘resilience’, instead of a ‘stiff upper lip’. However, whilst that ‘stiff upper lip’ may have had a rebrand in terminology, it’s the same old expectation that we learn how to contain our emotion, rather than learn what to do with that emotion so we can build a store of mental wealth. It remains an endemic way of thinking, behaving and educating. It’s time for a better understanding of what resilience really is and that means a fundamental shift – leadership by example.

The power of leadership

Mental health leadership is so much more than having a mental health policy in place for students. It’s also, vitally, about you, the leader. The question is, have you put your own house of mental fitness in order?

Individually, we are only ever in control of ourselves and what we do, with little impact on our external environment. As a head teacher, you have extended powers conferred upon you. You can both impact what you do for yourself and your own mental well-being, as well as alter the mental health environment your students and staff inhabit for so much of the year.

Radical thinking and courageous, innovative leadership can be the catalyst for positive school-wide change. Student and staff mental health are correlated, so it is imperative that you explore co-ordinated strategies for improving both student and staff well-being. Effective mental health planning and leadership can deliver massive cost–benefit in terms of reduced absenteeism and exclusion of young people, as well as reduced absenteeism and turnover of staff. Think of the money that could be saved in supply teaching, and the reduction in disruption from staff turnover, if teachers weren’t so persistently overwhelmed, demoralised and demotivated. Maybe they would stay in love with the vocation they chose for longer than the current average of 5 years from graduation.

It astonishes me that there appears to be no single strategy currently available for schools that guides them in how to manage rising mental health issues in young people and how to simultaneously stem the tide of teachers leaving the profession. The two are most definitely correlated. Improve one and you will see improvement in the other. Consciously work to improve both and I believe you will reap exponentially greater rewards in terms of achievement and budget.

I hope, within the confines of this book, to share tools, strategies and practices that will help you to be at the forefront of change. I share the underpinning neuroscience and psychology to help you improve understanding of your own mental health, as well as that of the young people in your school, and to be better informed about ways you could use that knowledge to improve staff well-being too.

Improvements are not achieved solely by increasing medication or access to counsellors and other mental health practitioners, nor by expecting the NHS to deal with the detritus contributed to by the environment and out-of-step parenting or education – but by being the source of positive change, by becoming the new way.

My aim is that you enjoy the ride, and that you start to feel more motivated and engaged in the positive leadership of your school than you may have done in a very long time.

I believe there is a way to benefit the entire school organisation (staff and students) in a way that increases self-esteem, resilience, motivation, happiness and performance at school and way beyond the school gates.

What we all really want

I’d like to borrow a quote from Dr Michael Peterson, co-director of the Whole Schooling Consortium in America. It underpins the tenet of this book:

The fact is that most parents and educators, when clearly asked, do not want education for work as the prime outcome of schooling. They want much more. We often conduct workshops with educators and parents in which we ask them to describe what has made the best year and the worst year for children. Always, teachers and parents state that what made the difference lay more in how the student was treated and positive or negative relationships rather than how well they did on particular tests. In other words, in a...