When it comes to campaigning, words are a powerful thing. A lot of effort is put into framing topics in a way that resonates with people and that usually involves dismissing anything that might broadly be described as a “cliché” or “jargon”. I’ve been in meetings that have taken hours, significant brainpower, sustenance and about seven pots of strong filter coffee simply to produce one slogan.

For this reason, a few weeks ago I found myself part of a focus group looking at the language we use around mental health. At one stage, we focused our attentions on the word ”wellbeing”. The conversation went something like this:

“What does ‘wellbeing’ actually mean?”

“It means being well.” (Don’t worry, we weren’t being paid.)

“And how is wellbeing attained?”

“Through a combination of understanding yourself, good habits and being in an environment conducive to being well.”

Which got me thinking: are schools today “environments conducive to being well”? In my experience, some are. But increasingly, the majority are not for pupils or their teachers. So, if the government wishes to promote mental and physical wellbeing, we need to understand the wider picture and look at what it is that makes schools a place where wellbeing can be hard to attain and sustain. Below are a few of my initial thoughts.

Catastrophic effects

The drive to “improve standards” has meant less autonomy for teachers, more paperwork and the narrowing of the curriculum. This has in turn led to three things: a culture of suspicion and mistrust around the teaching profession, which is increasingly stressed and overworked; less time for relaxation and reflection; and less sport, arts and music incorporated into the school day.

All of which are, let’s face it, catastrophic if the aim is to “feel well”.

Self-esteem is central to the pursuit of happiness and wellbeing. If staff feel undervalued and pupils feel as though their worth is measured using an ever-shrinking and stringent set of academic criteria, the net result is that everyone is operating on a baseline of low self-worth. This in turn impacts the two most crucial things in defining a school environment - behaviour and relationships.

Pretty much the only thing that is known with any certainty within psychology is that your chances of recovery are dramatically increased if you have a great relationship with your therapist. To an extent, it’s irrelevant which therapy is used, it’s all about the trust you have and how comfortable you feel with the person delivering it. We can apply exactly the same theory to the classroom. Children learn better when they have a good relationship with their teacher, when that relationship is based on trust and when they feel safe. So ever-spiralling class sizes are, by the same logic, one of the biggest obstacles to “feeling well”.

Finally, schools are having to absorb responsibilities within their communities that would have once been the remit of social services, or of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. They are feeding pupils who haven’t been given breakfast, they are intervening in family scenarios involving homelessness or domestic violence, they are attempting to administer solutions to poor mental health. Cuts are being made everywhere and it is schools that are shouldering the consequences. That is a huge responsibility for teachers to take on unsupported and there are only so many hours in the school day.

A broader curriculum

The conclusion must therefore be this: if we are serious in tackling the crisis in wellbeing and the huge impact that’s having on young people, their ability to fulfil their potential (which, lest we forget, isn’t restricted to their grades) and their ability to become functioning members of society (slash working taxpayers with less health issues who are therefore are less likely to be a drain on the economy if you lean towards that persuasion), then we must start thinking from a wider perspective than specific interventions in mental health (which are of course also necessary).

Re-broaden the curriculum so that sport, arts and music have more time. Allow teachers to use their instinct more. Encourage more teachers into the profession by making teaching an attractive prospect (increasing their pay and giving teachers more respect would be a good start) thereby reducing class sizes. Pump more money into social services and CAHMS to take some of the strain away. Give everyone a bit more time and space to breathe. The mainstream press can also help by ceasing to print articles that deliberately paint teachers as incompetent.

After all, I’ve never felt more comfortable and serene than when I recently visited the Red Balloon Centre in Cambridge, a small school for severely bullied and traumatised children, which dedicates half the day to academic learning and half the day to therapy, arts, circle time, sociable, nutritionally balanced meals and wellbeing exercises and where every child receives one-to-one tutoring. Now THAT was an “environment conducive to wellbeing”.

Natasha Devon is the Department for Education’s mental health champion and tweets at @NatashaDevonMBE

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