Throughout this academic year, primary schools across the county are taking part in the Wellbeing for Education Return Programme (WfER). Steve Harris (Wellbeing Education) leads the primary programme, bringing schools together to explore practical ways to support wellbeing for staff, pupils, and families during, and beyond, the pandemic.

Over 130 Leicestershire primary schools are already in the programme, and it's not too late for new Leicestershire schools to join. There are a wide variety of printed and video materials summarising the topics already covered which include…

• The five principles of recovery. Over 50 practical ideas that help integrate emotional wellbeing into the fabric of school life, including creative ways in which schools have adapted practice to accommodate pandemic restrictions.
• Risk and Protective factors. A practical look at research from CaMHS (and published by the DfE) into how resilience can be affected positively as well as detrimentally by a wide range of influences. This work explores how the balance of influences may have been affected by the pandemic, with creative and practicalways in which we can reduce the impact of risks, and promote protective factors.
• Staff wellbeing. Schools in the programme identified this as a high priority, and this work contains 15 tried and tested approaches that can be applied at an individual level, as well as forming part of a whole-school approach to staff wellbeing.
• Anxiety. The focus of this session is to unify a wide range of good advice on anxiety into a three-step process (awareness-audit-act.) We also looked in detail at the concept of emotion coaching, which is a simple and practical way in which staff and parents can use moments of heightened emotions (including anxiety) to connect with young people, and use these moments as a learning opportunity to help manage emotions in the future.
• Local services and resources. This work highlights information about a wide variety of local services and resources that can be shared with staff, pupils, and families to help them get high quality additional support if/when needed. Local partners have also contributed directly to the programme with short videos and supporting written materials.
• Emotion Coaching. LCC Educational Psychology team provided a well attended and well received session about how the principles of emotion coaching can be used to support pupils experiencing a wide range of emotions, including anxiety.
• Governor Support. Steve led two session for the Governor Support and Development service to share the work from the programme, and look specifically at the role of governors supporting schools during (and after) the pandemic.
• Planning an effective 'catch-up' strategy. This work looks at creating a 'catch-up' (enhancement) strategy that matches your school values, pays attention to national research, and identifies the needs of your school and individuals. This then leads to a wide range of practical examples of practice that Leicestershire schools have been using to plan actions around the priorities identified. The work has supporting presentations and a video for schools recently joining the programme.

Still to come…

• Session 4 for leadership and pastoral staff, with a particular look at building home/school links in the light of the last year. There will also be a thoughtful consideration of behaviour, behaviour management, and wellbeing.
• Capturing innovation. Some of the new ways of working and organising created through necessity have long term value post-pandemic. We will be capturing and sharing ideas from around the county.
• Large scale staff meetings. In the summer term schools will be connecting together for shared staff meetings where we will be summarising the best ideas of the programme, and looking forward with positivity, creativity, and energy to making 2021/22 the best year ever to be in school.
• Ongoing one to one or small group support through regular 'drop-in' sessions.

To join WfER and access all the past and future work email your name, role, and school to steve@wellbeingeducation.co.uk

The programme is fully funded though Leicestershire Local Authority.