Teach Secondary 14.4

Many of these young people are neurodiverse, and liable to experience meltdowns if they feel emotionally overloaded. At any SEN school, students’ levels of wellbeing must go hand-in-hand with their levels of academic achievement – because if students aren’t in the right emotional state, they simply won’t learn (or even attend school at all). Equal importance I myself amneurodiverse, with a diagnosis of ADHD and strongly suspected autism. I know only too well the struggles of trying to fit into a neurotypical world. If I’d attended a school where I could have been given a detention for not tracking or making constant eye contact with teachers, I doubt I’d have wanted to go. Constant eye contact – especially when forced into it under threats of punishment – is likely to be hard for many autistic young people. Even among students remaining inmainstream education, the pressure to achieve good grades can be a source of huge anxiety. The Mix (themix.org.uk ) is a UK service that provides online mental health support for under 25s. In a survey it carried out last year of young people using its services, 79% of respondents told the charity they had been negatively impacted by their most recent exams. 80%meanwhile said they had experienced panic in the run-up to their exams, with 65% saying that their most recent exams had ‘negatively impacted their relationship with their family’. A startling 41% of the young people surveyed moreover felt that their parents cared more about their results than them. The survey’s findings suggest that more perhaps needs to be done to better support young people struggling with exam stress – but also that the time might have come for us to reconsider our continued heavy reliance on exam outcomes as being the ultimate measure of a school’s success. What if, measured via a system of comprehensive national surveys, young people’s mental health and wellbeing at 16 was considered as equally important a marker of a school’s success as its exam results? Reframing ‘successful schooling’ Some schools and organisations are now taking steps to actively promote wellbeing strategies to their students, in an effort to combat the stress that constant pressure to achieve results can cause. The Mindfulness in Schools Project (mindfulnessinschools.org ) is a charity seeking to equip educators with the skills needed to lead mindfulness and meditation sessions. One of its ambassadors is Esther Ghey, whose daughter Brianna was murdered in 2023. She credits mindfulness with helping her process the grief of losing her daughter, and is encouraging educators to help students see mindfulness as a useful tool for coping with difficult situations. Elsewhere, The Avanti School in Stanmore, North London promotes wellbeing by adopting a philosophy based on Hindu teachings (and while it serves primarily Hindu students, admissions are open to all). The school organises regular meditation, philosophy and yoga sessions, and prides itself on prioritising a holistic approach to education over narrowly focusing on exam results. This balanced approach doesn’t seem to have prevented the school from obtaining good exam results regardless, with 79% of its GCSE awards in 2024 falling between grades 5 to 9. With adolescent mental health issues continuing to rise, it’s becoming evident that schools must do more to help young people become well-adjusted, successful adults. We need to reframe ‘successful schooling’ as encompassing more than solely getting good grades, and move towards a new model of successful schooling that does as much to support the emotional health of pupils as their academic performance. Living a successful life involves considerably more than just earning the ‘right grades’ and setting your sights on a high-paying jobs – as can be seen by the many people in the world who did get all the right results, and the good jobs, but who still aren’t happy. The importance of empathy, self-awareness and learning – driven by curiosity, rather than fear of punishment – should never be forgotten. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alice Guile is a secondary school art teacher TEACH SECONDARY SPECIAL HEALTH & WELLBEING 35 teachwire.net/secondary H E A LT H & W E L L B E I N G