By Geoffrey Stanford, Headmaster at Newcastle Royal Grammar School
Much has been written recently about the impact that Covid-19 and the consequent lockdowns has had on wellbeing and, as a community, the RGS has had our fair share of challenges. Indeed, our students have faced similar pressures and anxieties to so many young people across the country.
The pastoral work to support students is time consuming, emotionally challenging and does not receive the public accolades of exam results or co-curricular achievements. It is often taken for granted as something any school should do but it involves huge amounts of selfless effort behind the scenes by many dedicated people who are so often genuinely unsung heroes.
Earlier this year, we were therefore very proud to have secured the Wellbeing Award for Schools, established by the National Children’s Bureau. As it happens, this award is actually something we had been working towards since before Covid-19 struck as we knew that we wanted to learn from best practice about looking after the wellbeing not only of pupils but also of staff and parents and even the wider community. We already had a strong wellbeing culture at RGS and we wanted to be able to celebrate that, whilst also identifying what more we could do to keep it evolving positively. It has been hugely reassuring to receive external validation of all the good things that we are doing and winning such a coveted accreditation for this aspect of RGS is a wonderful endorsement of the exceptional work of so many.
At the RGS we believe that wellbeing is of central importance to both learning and attainment, and we have a whole school approach where emotional wellbeing and mental health is everyone’s business. The Award recognises the amazing array of our existing activities that are aimed at placing emotional wellbeing and positive mental health at the very heart of our school culture.
Each year we take in a whole new cohort of pupils from a wide range of backgrounds and prior experiences, introducing and promoting our positive culture through our carefully crafted transition programmes. Maintaining our standards of behaviour requires conscious and persistent reinforcement from trained staff, consistent leadership example of senior pupils and the constant adherence to expectations of all. It is built upon hundreds of tiny acts that happen every day in school and which help to create the wellbeing culture that is ever evolving within our community – we are proud of the fact that so many people prioritise their own and others’ wellbeing as a matter of course and this is a key component of enabling our students and staff to thrive and to be the best version of themselves.
This has not happened by chance, however. A lot of conscious thought has gone in behind the scenes in developing our wellbeing strategy. Wellbeing is now an integral part of our development plans in school and is embedded in all aspects of school life, from coordination of assembly messages through departmental meetings, structural improvements in school and even little things like our dining hall layout.
So, what’s next? We are certainly not complacent and are only too aware that there will always be things we can continue to improve. We have therefore put together a dynamic wellbeing plan that encompasses students, staff, parents and the wider community which you can see on the newly designed wellbeing page on our school website.
Indeed, we are ambitious and open to new ideas which is evident in our future plans. In order to mark the award, we asked the whole school to make two wellbeing pledges: one to themselves and one to the rest of the community, because each individual has a responsibility both to look after their own wellbeing and to support the wellbeing of those around them. Perhaps readers of this blog might consider making their own pledges.