Good staff wellbeing is essential for cultivating a mentally healthy school, for retaining and motivating staff and for promoting pupil wellbeing and attainment
This page contains tools and resources for assessing children and young people of Primary school age (5-11)
‘The Big Book Of Blobs’
The Big Book of Blobs, written by Pip Wilson and Ian Long, is a useful (and highly photocopiable(!)) tool for helping Primary and Secondary school children to explore their feelings. Blob characters are depicted in many different situations which can be used as a springboard for meaningf...Read more
The Big Book of Blobs, written by Pip Wilson and Ian Long, is a useful (and highly photocopiable(!)) tool for helping Primary and Secondary school children to explore their feelings.
Blob characters are depicted in many different situations which can be used as a springboard for meaningful discussion on a range of issues and topics. The Blobs are often organised into themes of places, issues, occasions and personal development, and include scenarios such as the beach, cinema, city, concert, home, playground, bullying, death, fame, money, parents, romance, sleep, Christmas, Easter, Olympics, body, caring and feelings.
'The Big Book of Blobs' is used regularly at Redwood Primary School by Sue Smith, a learning mentor, who has found it very useful in helping pupils who otherwise struggle to express their feelings open up. The blobs are most useful when used in the initial stages of a conversation or intervention with a pupil, and can help to identify and stimulate a discussion around what that pupil is feeling.
Please Note: There are differently age appropriate Blobs, whereby some may be seen doing things which you may not consider appropriate, (such as carrying or shooting guns), so make sure to look over the blobs before using them!
Boxall Profiles
The Boxall Profile is an observational tool that focuses on identifying children’s developmental needs and the levels of skills they possess to access learning. It supports staff in developing greater observational skills and deepens understanding of children’s difficulties and can support t...Read more
The Boxall Profile is an observational tool that focuses on identifying children’s developmental needs and the levels of skills they possess to access learning. It supports staff in developing greater observational skills and deepens understanding of children’s difficulties and can support the development of interventions. It is used extensively as part of monitoring nurture group provision.
https://www.ncb.org.uk/buildbackchildhood
A really interesting read:
Before the pandemic, a child’s health, wellbeing and life chances were powerfully shaped by the circumstances of their birth. The pandemic has painfu...Read more
Before the pandemic, a child’s health, wellbeing and life chances were powerfully shaped by the circumstances of their birth. The pandemic has painfully exposed these inequalities, with disadvantaged children falling even further behind their peers in education, and those who were already vulnerable being put at even greater risk.Image
The Spending Review is a turning point. Instead of going back to how things were, this is our chance to look to the future – a future where every child feels safe, secure and supported. This is our chance to Build Back Childhood.
Today’s challenges demand a strategic approach to the needs of babies, children and young people from conception to age 25. Creating lasting change must mean sustained improvement in core budgets to ensure existing duties can be met, as well as funding new initiatives. Our children need a Spending Review that:
Levels up living standards for families;
Explicitly invests in prevention and early intervention;
Takes a rounded approach to children’s recovery;
Gives every child the best start in life.
The clock is ticking and, as each day passes without a decisive response, the longer-term risks to children and the cost to the public purse rise.
Pupil Attitudes to Self and School (PASS) is an all-age attitudinal survey that provides a measurement of a pupil’s attitudes towards themselves as learners and their attitudes towards school, suitable for pupils aged 4 to 18+. Available ...Read more
Pupil Attitudes to Self and School (PASS) is an all-age attitudinal survey that provides a measurement of a pupil’s attitudes towards themselves as learners and their attitudes towards school, suitable for pupils aged 4 to 18+.
Mr. R Meehan, Assistant Head at the City of Derby Academy (CODA), talked to the Emotionally Health Schools team about the implementation, benefits and practicalities of using the PASS survey at the School for the first time.
...Read more
Mr. R Meehan, Assistant Head at the City of Derby Academy (CODA), talked to the Emotionally Health Schools team about the implementation, benefits and practicalities of using the PASS survey at the School for the first time.
CODA has over the last academic year implemented the PASS survey as a part of a larger suite of GL assessments to help "measure aspects of life at school that weren't otherwise measured". Targeted specifically at years 7 - 10 to avoid disruption to year 11 exams, students were given up to 20 minutes to fill in the survey one form-group at a time after being briefed by their teacher about the survey's purpose. Mr Meehan indicated that the cost of the survey had been covered by the Pupil Premium funding received by the School.
The results of the survey are broken down into multiple levels across a number of different demographics such as school year, gender and nationality and are then graded through a traffic light system. Once completed, the results were then shared with all staff at CODA, not just teaching staff. Mr Meehan emphasized that he felt it was important for all staff to see the schools position to really embed a whole school approach and awareness to its pupil's mental and emotional health.
The results of the survey allowed CODA to see both the areas of strength and the areas of improvement across the entire picture of the school, with most of the results coming out as Green highlighting the good work undertaken by the school already. The survey was then embedded with existing support structures in the school - those pupils who came out Amber were passed to CODA's pupil-led 'Wellbeing Ambassador' team, and those that came out as Red were passed to the schools 'Pastoral team' for 1-to-1 interventions.
While it was useful for CODA to see the breakdown in that way, Mr Meehan warned schools to consider the total numbers of students in any given group before acting. If there are only a handful of students in a given category, can the results in that category be considered as statistically significant? Mr Meehan indicated that where an issue was identified in a smaller cohort by the survey, individual results were given greater weight to gain a fuller understanding.
When asked what he felt the limitations to the survey were, Mr Meehan outlined firstly that there was no indication in the results of how long pupils had taken to fill in the survey. Mr Meehan questioned the accuracy of the answers given by a pupil that may rushed through and completed the survey in 5 or so minutes, although because of this missing information it was impossible to tell. Mr Meehan also raised an issue regarding pupil comprehension of the survey questions, although this was mitigated by a clear and concise briefing by the form-tutor at the start of the exercise.
When asked if he would recommend the survey to other schools in Derby City that might be considering it, Mr Meehan indicated that it is a useful tool, it was worth doing but any school that is considering it should do so more than once in order to see the 'distance traveled' and improvements year-to-year.
The Pass Survey is appropriate for use in both Primary and Secondary schools, If you would like to read more about the Pass Survey, click here.
Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (and Subscales) (RCADS)
The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) is a 47-item, youth self-report questionnaire with subscales including: separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and low mood (major depressive disorder). It als...Read more
The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) is a 47-item, youth self-report questionnaire with subscales including: separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and low mood (major depressive disorder). It also yields a Total Anxiety Scale (sum of the 5 anxiety subscales) and a Total Internalizing Scale (sum of all 6 subscales). Additionally, The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale – Parent Version (RCADS-P) similarly assesses parent report of youth’s symptoms of anxiety and depression across the same six subscales.
The RCADS and the RCADS-P can be used for tracking symptoms as well as providing additional information for assessment.
The RCADS can be completed by young people aged from 8 to 18 years and the RCADS-P can also be completed by the parent or carer of young people aged across the same age groups. Clinical experience indicates that RCADS is too developmentally advanced for use with young people with learning disabilities, but has been found to be useful for some CYP with mild learning difficulties (Law & Wolpert, 2014).
Robin Banerjee’s* Socio-Emotional Profile Questionnaires
Socio-Emotional profile questionnaires are designed to help you gain additional information about a child or young person’s emotional health and well-being, as well as to give a picture of the peer relationships and levels of social acceptance and rejection within a class or tutor group. ...Read more
Socio-Emotional profile questionnaires are designed to help you gain additional information about a child or young person’s emotional health and well-being, as well as to give a picture of the peer relationships and levels of social acceptance and rejection within a class or tutor group.
There are two types of surveys (with two variations of those dependent on the pupils age) :
'My Feelings':
This questionnaire concerns pupils' social and emotional experiences. Dependent on the pupil's age, they are asked to respond to between 20 & 43 questions covering a range of topics such as:
Positive social experiences at school
Negative social experiences at school
Negative emotions (e.g. feeling sad, worried, or scared) at school
Self-perceptions
Anxiety, depressive symptoms & sadness
'My Class':
This questionnaire asks pupils, dependent on their age, to nominate peers that they:
Most like
Least like
See as kind and cooperative
See as shy
See as leaders
Find out more and download free socio-emotional questionnaires from the University of Sussex website here.
*Professor Robin Banerjee is Professor of Developmental Psychology (Psychology, Mental Health Practice) at the University of Sussex and co-editor of the journal Infant and Child Development (Online ISSN: 1522-7219)
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
What is the SDQ?
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief behavioural screening questionnaire designed for 3-16 year olds.It exists in several versions to meet the needs of researchers, clinicians and educationalists. Available ...Read more
What is the SDQ?
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief behavioural screening questionnaire designed for 3-16 year olds.
It exists in several versions to meet the needs of researchers, clinicians and educationalists. Available here.
The Kindness Principle Conference For Derby City Schools
Delivered by Dave Whitaker
Free to attend for Derby City Schools. Thursday 30th June 2022 Pride Park Stadium
Use the link to book your place;
...Read more
Delivered by Dave Whitaker
Free to attend for Derby City Schools. Thursday 30th June 2022 Pride Park Stadium
This tool has been developed by a team based at the Research Centre for Experiential Education (Leuven University – Belgium) under the supervision of Dr. Ferre Laevers. The tool focuses on two central indicators when planning any educational setting: ‘Wellbeing’ and ‘Involvement’. Wellbeing refers to feeling at ease, being spontaneous and free of emotional tensions and is crucial to secure ‘mental health’. Wellbeing is linked to self-confidence, a good degree of self-esteem and resilience. Involvement refers to being intensely engaged in activities and is considered to be a necessary condition for deep level learning and development.
Assessment of Wellbeing and Involvement
Laevers has created a 5 point scale to measure both wellbeing and involvement. If there is a lack of wellbeing and or involvement, it is likely a child’s development will be threatened. The higher the levels of wellbeing and involvement we can achieve for the child, the more we can add to the child’s development. When there are high levels of wellbeing and involvement, we know that deep level learning is taking place.
The evaluation starts with assessing the levels of wellbeing and involvement using the tables.
The procedure is simple and can be compared to ‘scanning’: observe the children for about two minutes to ascertain the general levels of wellbeing and involvement using the five-point scale. The observation can focus on groups of children or can be used to focus on a particular individual. Unless a child is operating at 4 or 5, learning will be limited. However, children cannot peak at levels 4 or 5 all the time and levels will fluctuate throughout the day.
Leuven Scale of Wellbeing
Extremely Low - The child clearly shows signs of discomfort such as crying or screaming. They may look dejected, sad, frightened or angry. The child does not respond to the environment, avoids contact and is withdrawn.
Low - The posture, facial expression and actions indicate that the child does not feel at ease. However, the signals are less explicit than under level 1 or the sense of discomfort is not expressed the whole time.
Moderate - The child has a neutral posture. Facial expression and posture show little or no emotion. There are no signs indicating sadness or pleasure, comfort or discomfort.
High - The child shows obvious signs of satisfaction (as listed under level 5). However, these signals are not constantly present with the same intensity.
Extremely High - The child looks happy and cheerful, smiles, cries out with pleasure. They may be lively and full of energy. Actions can be spontaneous and expressive. The child may talk to him/herself, play with sounds, hum, sing. The child appears relaxed and does not show any signs of stress or tension. He / she is open and accessible to the environment. The child expresses self-confidence and self-assurance.
Leuven Scale of Involvement
Reference:
Well-being and Involvement in Care Settings. A Process-oriented Self-evaluation
Instrument, Ferre Laevers (Ed.) Research Centre for Experiential Education,
Leuven University. ISBN: 978-90-77343-76-8)
Level Involvement Signals:
Extremely Low - Activity is simple, repetitive and passive. The child seems absent and displays no energy. They may stare into space or look around to see what others are doing.
Low - Frequently interrupted activity. The child will be engaged in the activity for some of the time they are observed, but there will be moments of non-activity when they will stare into space, or be distracted by what is going on around.
Moderate - Mainly continuous activity. The child is busy with the activity but at a fairly routine level and there are few signs of real involvement. They make some progress with what they are doing but don’t show much energy and concentration and can be easily distracted.
High - Continuous activity with intense moments. The child’s activity has intense moments and at all times they seem involved. They are not easily distracted.
Extremely High - The child shows continuous and intense activity revealing the greatest involvement. They are concentrated, creative, energetic and persistent throughout nearly all the observed period.
World Mental Health Day 2022 toolkit
Toolkits of resources for primary and secondary/FE settings, full of World Mental Health Day activities for whole classes, small groups or individual pupils.
...Read more
Toolkits of resources for primary and secondary/FE settings, full of World Mental Health Day activities for whole classes, small groups or individual pupils.
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