Health and Wellbeing
10 Ideas to Make School Feel Safe for Children Struggling to Attend
Make school feel safe enough to come back to, with 10 low-cost ideas that run from the morning welcome to the phone call home.
- 50 minutes
- Recorded webinar
- 1 CPD hour
- Certificate
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
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What you'll learn
- Welcome a child each day with a fresh start, whatever happened yesterday
- Decide which rules matter for this child right now, and which can wait
- Set up a morning routine that makes arriving at school feel familiar
- Use quiet praise and warned questioning so anxious pupils can join in
- Share good news with families to change the story they tell about school
About this course
For a child who's struggling to attend, getting through the gate can take everything they've got. If the first thing they hear is about their tie or their homework, school has just proved it's the scary place they thought it was.
These 10 ideas follow the school day, and none of them costs much in time or money. Greet the child warmly, whatever happened yesterday, and decide which battles can wait. In lessons, take away the fear of being picked on without warning, and praise quietly, with a nod or a note rather than in front of the class. At lunch, a quiet place to eat can decide whether the afternoon goes well.
Then end the day on something good, and give the family a new story to tell about school. The aim is a phone call from school that a parent is pleased to get.
- For early career teachers, mental health leads and 5 other roles. All phases.
Recording
Open in order
- 4 min
Introduction
- 4 min
Warm Welcome
- 4 min
Pick your Battles
- 6 min
Morning Routine
- 8 min
Anxiety-Free Engagement
- 5 min
Quiet Praise
- 4 min
Academic Safety
- 4 min
Control the Fun
- 5 min
Quiet Lunch
- 3 min
End with Positives
- 4 min
Tell a New Story
- 2 min
Summary
- 3 min
Q&A