The Wellbeing Curriculum


Book Description

Andrew Cowley, author of The Wellbeing Toolkit and co-founder of Healthy Toolkit (@HealthyToolkit), presents the ultimate guide to help primary schools develop a practical, principled and values-driven wellbeing curriculum for their pupils. Schools are responsible for giving children the tools and emotional resilience to cope with the changes and challenges they will face in the future. Developing a comprehensive wellbeing curriculum for primary-aged children is crucial: when taught how to make good life choices and care for their physical and mental health, children will thrive both at primary school and beyond. The Wellbeing Curriculum covers a range of issues from self-awareness, looking after others and building trust, to exercise, healthy eating, cyberbullying, leadership, diversity and empowerment. It offers practical ideas for embedding a wellbeing curriculum in lessons, assemblies, PSHE and RSE sessions and as part of the school ethos. This is the must-have book for schools looking to adapt their pastoral approach, and put pupil wellbeing at the heart of the curriculum. Additional online resources for the book can be found at www.bloomsburyonlineresources.com/the-wellbeing-curriculum.




Wellbeing in the Primary Classroom


Book Description

The bestselling guide for teaching wellbeing and positive mental health in primary schools, packed with practical ideas for every classroom. Evidence has shown that happy people (those who experience more positive emotions) perform better in school, enjoy healthier relationships, are generally more successful and even live longer! It is an ever-growing concern, therefore, that children's levels of happiness and wellbeing are decreasing, while their levels of stress, anxiety and depression are increasing. As a result, many schools and teachers are looking for accessible ways to address these mental health problems in young people. In this must-read book, experienced teacher and advisor on children's wellbeing, Adrian Bethune, takes the latest evidence and research from the science of happiness and positive psychology and brings them to life. Wellbeing in the Primary Classroom is packed full of tried-and-tested activities and techniques, including mindfulness, positive reflection, physical activity and acts of kindness. With a foreword by Sir Anthony Seldon, former Master of Wellington College, well known for introducing and advocating happiness and wellbeing in education, it is an essential guide for supporting emotional and mental wellbeing in the primary classroom.




The Wellbeing Toolkit


Book Description

The Wellbeing Toolkit is an invaluable resource for promoting wellbeing and resilience among all school staff, thereby improving staff attendance and retention, and helping all teachers fall back in love with teaching. In this thought-provoking book, Andrew Cowley, co-founder of Healthy Toolkit (@HealthyToolkit), draws on his own experiences as a school leader to unpick the myths around wellbeing and set out a practical, authentic and values-driven model that will enable leaders to foster a positive atmosphere for the benefit of the whole-school community. With a focus on developing a culture of positivity and self-care, effectively enabling all staff members to take ownership of the wellbeing strategy and supporting and promoting healthy lifestyles, this practical guide also considers scenarios arising from potentially more stressful incidents such as a bereavement. Staff wellbeing needs to be a strategic consideration for all primary and secondary school leaders, not something delivered on an ad hoc basis. Emphasis must be placed on really knowing staff, what motivates them and what may affect their confidence. The Wellbeing Toolkit offers effective strategies for addressing staff wellbeing from a whole-school perspective with particular reference to reducing workload, managing stress and supporting teachers in challenging circumstances.




The Wellbeing Curriculum


Book Description

Andrew Cowley, author of The Wellbeing Toolkit and co-founder of Healthy Toolkit (@HealthyToolkit), presents the ultimate guide to help primary schools develop a practical, principled and values-driven wellbeing curriculum for their pupils. Schools are responsible for giving children the tools and emotional resilience to cope with the changes and challenges they will face in the future. Developing a comprehensive wellbeing curriculum for primary-aged children is crucial: when taught how to make good life choices and care for their physical and mental health, children will thrive both at primary school and beyond. The Wellbeing Curriculum covers a range of issues from self-awareness, looking after others and building trust, to exercise, healthy eating, cyberbullying, leadership, diversity and empowerment. It offers practical ideas for embedding a wellbeing curriculum in lessons, assemblies, PSHE and RSE sessions and as part of the school ethos. This is the must-have book for schools looking to adapt their pastoral approach, and put pupil wellbeing at the heart of the curriculum. Additional online resources for the book can be found at www.bloomsburyonlineresources.com/the-wellbeing-curriculum.




Wellbeing, Education and Contemporary Schooling


Book Description

Wellbeing, Education and Contemporary Schooling examines the role of wellbeing in schools and argues that it should be integral to core policy objectives in health and education. The whole school focus chosen is conducive to the review of wellbeing in schools, and assists in better understanding the complex relationships between learners and teachers in policy contexts, where every teacher has a responsibility for learners’ wellbeing. By exploring a range of debates about the nature of wellbeing, the book shows how a child’s wellbeing is inseparable from their overall capacity to learn and achieve, and to become confident, self-assured and active citizens. Drawing on international curriculum developments, it considers the ways in which wellbeing could reshape educational aims in areas such as outdoor learning and aesthetic imagination, helping to inform programmes of professional learning for teachers. Separated into six parts, the book covers: philosophical perspectives on wellbeing policy perspectives on wellbeing professional perspectives on wellbeing practice perspectives on wellbeing future prospects for wellbeing a personal perspective on wellbeing. Examining ways in which wellbeing can become a central component of the ethos, culture and environment of contemporary schools, Wellbeing, Education and Contemporary Schooling is an invaluable guide for all students, teachers, researchers and policy makers with an interest in learning, teaching and children’s wellbeing.




The Educators’ Guide to Whole-school Wellbeing


Book Description

The Educators’ Guide to Whole-school Wellbeing addresses challenges faced by schools wanting to improve wellbeing. While many schools globally now understand the need to promote and protect student wellbeing, they often find themselves stuck – not knowing where to start, what to prioritise, or how to implement whole-school change. This book fills that gap. This book provides companionship through rich stories from schools around the world that have created wellbeing practices that work for their schools. It guides educators through processes that help create individualised, contextualised school wellbeing plans. With chapters addressing ‘why wellbeing?’, ‘what is "whole school?"’, change dynamics, measurement, staff wellbeing, coaching, cultural responsiveness, and how to build buy-in, it is the first of its kind. Balancing research and practice for each topic with expert practitioner and researcher insights, this book gives schools access to best-practice guidance from around the world in a user-friendly format, designed for busy educators. What sets the authors apart from the many school wellbeing practitioners globally is their substantial experience working alongside diverse school groups. While many have experience in one school, few work across a multitude of very different schools and clusters, giving these practising academics a unique appreciation for effective, cross-context processes.




Wellbeing in Higher Education


Book Description

Academic staff and students within higher education settings are confronted by a learning environment that is academically stimulating, informative, career-focused and socially rich, which can be intensely competitive and highly charged. Within this learning environment, academic staff and students are often at risk of compromising their wellbeing in their pursuit of academic excellence. This book provides an examination of the key areas that are important to the sustenance of wellbeing within higher education settings, with a view to promoting healthy learning environments. The chapter authors are predominantly working in the Asia-Pacific rim, but the book also includes more universal perspectives. The synthesis of the issues covered in the book is crucial to the understanding of higher education as not only an environment for gaining knowledge and skills relevant for success in academic and career domains, but also as an environment for developing socially adept and authentic communication skills. The ideas presented in this book will further assist academic staff and students to consider ways to more fully participate in their learning environment so that they can optimize their valuable contributions to the professional communities they serve.




Well-Being in Schools


Book Description

This timely resource for teachers, leaders, and policymakers provides breakthrough insights into how to improve students' well-being in schools. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, students' well-being was an increasingly prominent concern among educators, as issues related to mental health, global crises, and social media became impossible to ignore. But what, exactly, is well-being? What does it look like, why is it so important, and what can school systems do to promote it? How does it relate to student achievement and social and emotional learning? World-renowned education experts Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley answer these questions and more in this in-depth exploration of the underlying ideas and research findings related to well-being, coupled with examples of policies and implementations from around the globe. The authors make the case for putting well-being ahead of other priorities, such as scores on high-stakes assessments, and explain the three powerful forces that educators can leverage to set up effective well-being policy and practice: prosperity for all, ethical technology use, and restorative nature. Inspiring, thoughtful, and provocative, Well-Being in Schools: Three Forces That Will Uplift Your Students in a Volatile World offers hope in a time of unprecedented challenges. Looking within and beyond the classroom, it charts a path toward a lofty but achievable goal: improved well-being not only for students but also for society as a whole.




Symbiosis: The Curriculum and the Classroom


Book Description

Has our system of accountability and quick fixes meant we've lost perspective of what can really improve the quality of education? With a multitude of issues at the heart of some of our more toxic schools, including micro-management, over-complicated policy and the intricate measurement of the wrong foci, it appears that teachers are experiencing a disconnect from the very reason they joined teaching in the first place. With little autonomy over what's important, fewer teachers enter the profession than the monumental amount of teachers that are leaving, and those that do, do so with reluctance and regret. With an astute examination of practice in schools, Claire Hill and Kat Howard take a thoughtful and strategic view of how to ensure a sense of connection and cohesion within schools, to ensure that all feel part of the collective curricular journey towards a gold standard. With a consideration of research-informed practice, this book will provide a series of strategies for curriculum designers at every level, keeping the high quality teachers that we very much need in schools, and providing a better palette to students in the process. At a time where teaching is somewhat politicised, monetised and overcomplicated, Symbiosis: Curriculum and the Classroom sets about the task of refining the way in which we run our schools to improve the quality of our everyday lives in schools.




Stop Talking About Wellbeing


Book Description

Stop talking about wellbeing, and start taking action to own your workload. As the teacher retention crisis reaches breaking point, and mental health for teachers features regularly in the press, wellbeing has been pushed to the top of the national agenda in a bid for schools to consider how to look after their staff. However, wellbeing is becoming a tokenistic feature within the education sector, as staff participate in compulsory wellbeing-linked activities that have very little impact on their workload or ability to do what they came into the profession to achieve: inspiring young people. In a critical consideration of a range of educational research, Kat explores the key factors that form a teacher's role within school, outlining a range of ways that teachers can take ownership of their workload, and wellbeing through a sense of true job fulfilment. Interviewing expert teachers in their field and taking a Kat provides practical strategies for teachers at any point of their career to take away and implement immediately, in a bid to improve the educational landscape for teachers everywhere.