Headteacher Update Podcast: Supporting pupil mental health & wellbeing

In this episode we discuss a range of ideas and strategies for how primary schools can support the good mental health and wellbeing of their pupils. We chat to three guests who work in three different schools. We hear their tenets of good practice when it comes to supporting good pupil wellbeing in school before discussing what wellbeing challenges they are seeing on the ground and at the chalkface in their schools. We delve into some of the work taking place in our guests' three schools and hear anonymised case studies of successful interventions they have had with pupils who have struggled. We talk extensively about their approaches to mental health and wellbeing education – within PSHE but also more generally across the curriculum and in the classroom with lots of ideas big and small. We look in particular at what we can do to support our pupils, including while they are waiting for CAMHS referrals, and we discuss what support we can access via other outside agencies. Elsewhere, we discuss how we can build positive relationships with pupils and families so that we can better recognise the warning signs of emerging problems and intervene quickly.