Anna Carey from the British International School Abu Dhabi highlights the importance of Personal and Social Development. She shares tips on how teachers and educators can enhance the wellbeing of their students. It’s important for students to learn the importance of acts of service; why and how their acts of service can affect the lives of others around them.

Stress-related mental health conditions are one of the most talked about barriers to learning in recent years – but why is that and how can schools support students to improve their wellbeing?

It’s undeniable that we’ve seen a rise in the number of students affected by mental health conditions, with the latest NHS survey of young people’s mental health revealing that one in eight 5-19 year olds in England had a diagnosable mental health condition in 2017. This isn’t just limited to Secondary School students either, with 66% of mums and dads in a recent nationwide survey of Primary Schools claiming that their child regularly feels anxious about lessons, homework and social aspects of school.

In International Schools in particular, students face the additional challenge of experiencing a new country and culture, which can have a big impact on their level of stress and how they handle that. But whether anxiety and stress is caused by increasingly demanding examinations or navigating the modern school environment, it’s clear that there is a growing need for schools to evaluate the procedures they have in place to ensure the wellbeing of every student.

However, with limited resources and hundreds of students under your school’s care, it puts a huge amount of pressure on staff members to meet safeguarding requirements and provide each student with the best possible experience in their pathway to higher education.

The following transcript is auto-generated from Youtube

my name is Anna Carey and I’m assistant
head teacher for personal and social
development at the British International
School Abu Dhabi I’m also head of year 7
and a PE teacher at the school
for more educational videos please
subscribe below and if you have any
further thoughts or comments please
write them below today I’m going to
speak to you about how we enhance
well-being in schools well-being
underpins everything that we do I’m one
of the first things that I would try and
highlight is connectivity it is
important for students to feel connected
and there are a number of ways in which
we can do this
but an integral part of this is the
pastoral team in school both head of
year unformed tutors play a huge part
and making our students feel more
connected with each other and socially
but also with the wider school community
and staff the second is to keep learning
and this is both true of staff and
students it’s really important for staff
to be able to adopt and change the
approaches in which they have to
teaching and learning and it’s also
important for students to get involved
in a number of activities outside of the
classroom these could include trips and
visits when not when it’s a good time
and a really good example of this at
this Abu Dhabi is our Switzerland and
our Tanzania trip when students have the
opportunity to visit other countries and
learn about different cultures the third
is to be active scientific research
proves that physical activity helps
promote overall well-being by offering a
wide range of CCA’s this enables
students to get involved in a number of
different physical activities it doesn’t
have to be a competitive program but
allowing students the opportunity to
participate in a CCA
both linking to physical well-being or
linking to health can benefit enormous
Lea educating parents on students with
regards to the physical clinic
Annabeth’s regards to canteen and health
and diet can also improve overall
well-being of students the next one is
to give and this can be through a number
of acts of service it’s really important
for students to know why and how their
acts of service can help other people
and again in a way that we
promote this within our school is the
development of our service opportunities
so our kindness crew aim to help other
people within our school community and
can give that sense of well-being on
social interactions through community
activities
the last one is mindfulness it’s really
important for students to be aware of
their own self and there are
contributions to both school life and
life in the wider community and how this
impacts other people a good example of
this is the moral education program
which typically takes place across the
AE help intense still and develop a
number of different values among
students on how they can impact the
wider community thank you very much for
watching as I’ve already stated
well-being is an essential part of
school life and it is important for
students in everyday life that they can
develop a nun improve their well-being
both physically mentally and socially
and I hope some of these guidelines and
some of these tips will help you in
screen to be able to implement this