Five proven ways to protect student’s mental health

In the whirlwind of academic life, students can find themselves managing the pressures of studies, friendships and personal expectations. However, with the right strategies we can help students build the resilience they need to overcome these challenges. On our senior mental health lead training, we work closely with schools to build supportive environments and share proven ways to make a big difference to student mental health.

Here are five top tips you can use in your school to improve wellbeing:

Build wellbeing into lessons

Break the silence surrounding mental health by integrating discussions about wellbeing into various subjects. A great way to do this is to talk to students about what mental health looks like. Art and music are ideal lessons to start conversations about how to express feelings. Whereas, English offers a good opportunity to explore how characters might be feeling and discuss the different ways they could deal with those emotions. Then in science and history lessons, you can discuss issues such as race, religion, gender or disability as part of a class, project or debate. Schools have found that this can help reduce discrimination and enable students to develop empathy and coping skills for life.

Reduce exam stress

Helping students look at how they can improve on what they already know, rather than focussing on what they don’t, is a good way to reduce exam stress. One school used this technique with year 10 students. The students were asked to review the feedback from their mock exams and identify the answers they had given that achieved the best marks. They then had the chance to review and change lower-scoring responses. This not only helped them understand why they had not scored so well the first time around, but also allowed them to boost their overall achievement.

Create a peer support network

It’s important to create a sense of community and belonging; an effective way to do this is through peer support networks. A number of school leaders have told us that they have recruited and trained a group of high-performing year 11s to run subject-based interventions and revision classes. The sessions also include relaxation techniques and have proved to be very successful in reducing exam-related stress and promoting camaraderie among students.

Promote self-care strategies

Talking to students about how they can incorporate self-care practices into their daily routines is extremely helpful. This could include activities like mindfulness, meditation, journaling, exercise, or spending time outdoors to help them unwind, reduce stress, and improve overall wellbeing.

Facilitate access to resources

Your website might be the first place pupils and their families look for support before they talk to the school. This is a good place to provide easy access to mental health resources and support services. Creating a dedicated section on the school's website with information about counselling services, hotlines, support groups, and online resources is a great way to offer support to students if they are not ready to talk about how they are feeling.

Another idea to keep mental health a priority, is to make it a regular feature in your school’s events calendar. We spoke to one secondary school, which is part of a larger trust, that launched an annual mental health conference. The event was organised and led by students across the group, addressing topics such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, and substance misuse, which resulted in students being more comfortable talking openly about their mental health.

For more ways to improve student wellbeing, you could consider signing up to our senior mental health lead training. The DfE offers grants to cover the full cost of training, to apply visit: Senior mental health lead training - GOV.UK