Teach Secondary Issue 14.2

A recently concluded research trial carried out by UCL, which sought to put five school-oriented mental health awareness interventions to the test, has now delivered its findings. The Education for Wellbeing trial ran from 2018 to 2024, involving 32,655 students in Years 4/5 and 7/8 based at 513 schools across England. Following analysis by specialists at the University of Dundee, University of Manchester, the LSE’s Care Policy Evaluation Centre and the University of Bath, three interventions showed signs of promise –Mindfulness- Based Exercises, Relaxation Techniques, and especially Strategies for Safety and Wellbeing (SSW). The latter helps students to normalise everyday negative emotions, such as stress and sadness, and distinguish them from mental ill health. When implemented in full, SSW interventions were found to significantly improve students’ mental health literacy at both primary and secondary, and made them more willing to seek help if and when they became affected by mental health problems later on. The SSWapproach was developed for the trial by the mental health charity Anna Freud (annafreud.org ), which now plans to deliver training for UK school staff in how to deliver the intervention at KS2/3. The full Education for Wellbeing trial findings can be downloaded via tinyurl. com/ts142-LL7 Got a great learning idea? Email editor@teachsecondary.com or tweet us at @teachsecondary TRENDING Our pickof the recent resources and launches teachersmight find useful... FULL STEAMAHEAD Geography and history teachers may be interested in a web-hosted interactive timeline launched as part of the Railway 200 campaign, marking the 200th anniversary ofmodern rail travel. Commencing with the 1825 opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the timeline uses amix of contemporary photography and illustrations to explain themajor rail milestones between then and now. railway200.co.uk/ timeline FROMTHE NILE TO BETHNAL GREEN The Young V&Amuseumhas unveiled a new exhibition, ‘Making Egypt’, that focuses on the centuries-spanning influence Egyptian culture has had on international art and design. Some 200works from the V&A’s collection are on display, including ancient funerarymasks and linen shrouds, as well as Princess Sopdet-em-haawt’s fully painted inner sarcophagus, on show in the UK for the first time. vam.ac.uk/young Education for Wellbeing On the radar TEACHER WALKTHROUGH ZEPH BENNETT IS A PE TEACHER AND SCHOOLACHIEVEMENT LEADERWITH 25 YEARS’ TEACHING EXPERIENCE; YOU CAN FINDMORE OF HIS EDUCATIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS BY FOLLOWING@ZEPHBENNETT.BSKY.SOCIAL ADAPTIVE TEACHING ZEPH BENNETT FLAGS UP SOME WAYS IN WHICH YOUR LESSONS CAN BE TAILORED TO STUDENTS’ DIFFERING ABILITIES 1 CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING Regularly checking for understanding will ensure the teacher can quickly identify any misconceptions, thus making task setting and adapting the level of challenge more accurate 2 SCAFFOLDING Setting appropriate work for all students may involve assigning sentence starters, keywords, chunked explanations, etc. – scaffolded tasks made slightly easier to navigate for students who are struggling with the learning 3 TIMING The timing of tasks is essential within adaptive classrooms; students all work at a different pace, so allowing them to complete tasks within different time frames will demonstrate an awareness of their needs 4 EXTENSION Students who complete initial tasks more quickly than their peers must be provided with additional challenge via an extension task 5 FEEDBACK Personalised and tailored feedback, which gives guidance on next steps and how to improve performance, can be provided to students in a timely fashion during the lesson 79 teachwire.net/secondary L E A R N I N G L A B