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Ultimate Guide for Health and Wellbeing

10/01/23

Supporting children’s mental and physical health and emotional wellbeing is vital.

IDL’s Wellbeing programme is designed to help support children’s mental wellbeing and encourage positive emotions. This is especially useful in light of Covid-19 new Ofsted requirements and the need to support children’s health and welfare.

So how can you help support young people’s health and wellbeing? This guide will look at some of the most important aspects of mental and physical health.

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Getting enough sleep

This is crucial for good health and wellbeing. It is recommended that children aged 7-13 years old get 9-11 hours of sleep every night during the school week and 10-12 hours on weekends. If children in the classroom are struggling or inattentive it may be because they are not getting sufficient sleep at home. You can talk to children and their parents about ways to improve sleep such as:

Eating a balanced diet

Eating well is important for good health. Many schools now run breakfast clubs to ensure that children have a good meal before they start lessons. Other ways schools can help are by:

Physical activity

Keeping physically active doesn’t mean that children have to do intensive exercise. However they should be active every day. Physical activity can include:

Learning about emotions

This can also help children to understand and manage their feelings. This can be done through classroom activities, discussions and assemblies. It is important that children feel able to talk about their emotions openly without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. Ways to do this include:

Mindfulness

This technique can help children focus on the present moment and become more aware of their thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness can be practised in many different ways such as through:

Stress-management techniques

Children can learn how to manage stress in healthy ways. Deep breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation and visualisation techniques are all effective ways to manage stress. Ways to do this include:

Outdoor learning

Activities outdoors for learning increase health, wellbeing and environmental awareness. There are many different types of outdoor learning all of which provide fantastic learning experiences for children and young people. If there’s space a garden on the school grounds is an excellent way for children to learn about horticulture. There are also outdoor learning centres (OLCs) catering to school groups. Some examples of other types of outdoor learning are:

Positive social media and internet use

Most children now have access to the internet and social media so it’s essential to make sure they are using it in a positive way. There are a number of things you can do to promote positive and responsible social media and internet use including:

Developing a solid sense of self-identity and self-esteem

Children need to feel good about themselves in order to be mentally healthy. There are several things you can do to promote a strong sense of self-identity and self-esteem including:

A supportive classroom environment

Children need to feel safe and respected. You can support this by having a positive relationship with each child maintaining open communication and setting clear expectations. A supportive environment also means focusing not only on academic achievements but also the health and wellbeing of learners. This can be done by:

Supporting children’s health and wellbeing

Finally it is also important to create a school environment where pupils feel safe, happy and valued. This can be achieved by having a positive behaviour policy in place ensuring that all staff are approachable and friendly and promoting an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcome.

By taking these steps you can help support the mental and physical health and emotional wellbeing of children in your care.

Children who feel happy and healthy are more likely to attend school engage with their learning and achieve their academic potential. By taking a few simple steps you can make a big difference to the health and wellbeing of young people.

IDL Wellbeing is now available!

IDL Wellbeing is a simple-to-use product that schools can use to help nurture good mental health for their pupils. This exciting new programme has been developed in response to the impact of Covid rising demand from schools and new Ofsted requirements.

The programme includes tools and techniques that children can use together or individually to help improve their resilience emotional awareness and mindfulness. For more information about IDL Wellbeing please visit our website or contact us.