Promoting positive student wellbeing around the world

The Covid-19 pandemic and other global crises continue to impact the mental health and wellbeing of people around the world. This year’s World Mental Health Day theme encourages people to come together to ‘Make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority’.

Since the pandemic, the need to put student wellbeing at the forefront of education has become increasingly apparent. This should not just be as a response to this crisis (or those involving natural disasters or conflicts) but also as part of developing a positive learning environment. Young people spend a lot of time in school and there is an increasing awareness that wellbeing is just as important for a child’s individual development and future life as the acquisition of knowledge, skills and understanding. 

Consequently, a greater focus on wellbeing is high on the agenda for many schools.

Teachers understand the need to take a broader, more holistic, approach to understanding and supporting children and young people, and one of the key questions that schools across the globe have been asking us recently, is how teachers can develop policies, programmes, and practices to support wellbeing.

Talking about wellbeing

Given the subjective nature of wellbeing and the large variety of potential influences upon it, talking to students about wellbeing is crucial to understanding it. The key to understanding how best to help students is to have a holistic picture of their strengths and needs. 

Schools need to nurture all aspects of a child’s growth. They can help each child to grow socially and emotionally as well as academically. Teachers need to take a ‘whole child’ approach and to anchor their understanding of each student with reliable information. 

A new tool to help

Many students at school took a really big hit, not only by missing out on education and learning which many are still catching up on, but psychologically too.

Cambridge CEM has now launched the Cambridge Wellbeing Check, for students aged 7 to 18, from primary to   secondary and beyond, that teachers can use to measure their students’ wellbeing and support their conversations. Teachers can use it to monitor the times when their students might be feeling low, stressed, pressured by exams, or coping with change over time. They can use it to support students to feel good and perform well.
 

“All of us have had to adapt to the changes brought about by the pandemic, but some of those changes have had a longer-term impact. We must not forget that as we return to ‘normality.’ Many students at school took a really big hit, not only by missing out on education and learning which many are still catching up on, but psychologically too. We know many students lost confidence and protracted time at home affected their social skills, and in some cases that led to a sense of isolation or even depression. Our teams at Cambridge CEM have been looking at how we can respond to that and have come up with what I think is a great new tool that can help” said Peter Phillips, Chief Executive at Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

The Cambridge Wellbeing Check is a digital assessment that takes just 20 minutes to do  so it can be done quickly and simply in a regular classroom lesson. It also comes complete with supporting lesson plans and activities that can be tailored to the needs and local context of each class or school.

Teachers can use the information gained from the Cambridge Wellbeing Check, together with the lesson plans, to help to educate their students about what wellbeing is, to create a classroom culture that is more emotionally literate and sensitive, and to set the scene for rich discussions of what might affect wellbeing within the group.

“There are four main uses of the Check.” Dr Irenka Suto, Director of Assessment at Cambridge CEM explains. “Teachers can teach and explore wellbeing with students, and they can use that information in classrooms to talk about wellbeing. The Check can be used to understand an individual student’s level of wellbeing and to identify any areas that need extra pastoral support. It can also be used to evaluate whole class or year group or a whole school’s wellbeing as an evaluation tool, and to evaluate the impact of interventions or initiatives to improve wellbeing.”  

Developing the Cambridge Wellbeing Check

With over 2,000 teachers and schools from more than 20 countries signing up for our informative webinars within the first week of launching the assessment, we can see that our commitment to developing this program is much needed and will indeed make a difference to many schools and students.

The Cambridge Wellbeing Check was developed from a survey developed by researchers Dr Ros McLellan, Maurice Galton, Susan Steward, and Charlotte Page   in the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education. The original survey was created as part of a study examining the role of creative initiatives in fostering wellbeing, which was funded by the international creative learning foundation Creativity, Culture and Education.

Cambridge CEM then worked to refine the questionnaire and bring it to life as a digital check that helps teachers understand how their students are feeling throughout the academic year. 

Kate Bailey, Managing Director of Cambridge CEM, outlines the benefits for schools and students: "At the heart of what we do at Cambridge CEM is the drive to empower teachers to make a difference. The Cambridge Wellbeing Check fulfils an important role in enabling teachers to start conversations around wellbeing, in a positive, proactive manner. This is not about diagnosing mental health issues, but the Check does provide valuable insight into how students are feeling, and practical guidance for developing a positive learning environment. With over 2,000 teachers and schools from more than 20 countries signing up for our informative webinars within the first week of launching the assessment, we can see that our commitment to developing this program is much needed and will indeed make a difference to many schools and students."

Those schools around the world who have already used it, such as the GEMS Millennium school – Al Khail, in Dubai, are now discovering the benefits: “The lesson plans provided were detailed well. They were easily comprehendible and pertained to what we follow at our school. The Wellbeing Check was easy to understand. The questions were well structured and relatable to the students.” 

Find out more about the Cambridge Wellbeing Check and how to join one of two free webinars on 13 and 20 October 2022.