Improving well-being at school
Since well-being has many facets, improving students’ well-being in schools requires a whole-school approach, involving both teachers and parents.
Schools should provide lessons focused on the responsible use of the Internet, the need to adopt a healthy lifestyle and how to prevent or cope with health problems, in collaboration with those involved, including health and social services, local authorities and civil society organisations.
Facts & figures
About 60% of school students report getting very tense when they study.[1]
Just over 60% of girls and 40% boys say they feel very anxious about doing tests at school, even when they are well prepared.[2]
Over 70% of parents say they would choose to send their children to a school with below-average exam results if students were happy there.[3]
What is well-being?
Well-being is the experience of health and happiness. It includes mental and physical health, physical and emotional safety, and a feeling of belonging, sense of purpose, achievement and success.
Well-being is a broad concept and covers a range of psychological and physical abilities. Five major types of well-being are said to be:
- Emotional well-being – the ability to be resilient, manage one’s emotions and generate emotions that lead to good feelings
- Physical well-being – the ability to improve the functioning of one’s body through healthy eating and good exercise habits
- Social well-being – the ability to communicate, develop meaningful relationships with others and create one’s own emotional support network
- Workplace well-being – the ability to pursue one’s own interests, beliefs and values in order to gain meaning and happiness in life and professional enrichment
- Societal well-being – the ability to participate in an active community or culture.
Overall well-being depends on all these types of functioning to an extent.[4]
“Having meaning and purpose is integral to people’s sense of well-being. Well-being involves far more than happiness, and accomplishments go far beyond test success.”[5]
Why is well-being important at school?
Well-being is important at school because schools have an essential role to play in supporting students to make healthy lifestyle choices and understand the effects of their choices on their health and well-being. Childhood and adolescence is a critical period in the development of long-term attitudes towards personal well-being and lifestyle choices. The social and emotional skills, knowledge and behaviours that young people learn in the classroom help them build resilience and set the pattern for how they will manage their physical and mental health throughout their lives.
Schools are able to provide students with reliable information and deepen their understanding of the choices they face. They are also able to provide students with the intellectual skills required to reflect critically on these choices and on the influences that society brings to bear on them, including through peer pressure, advertising, social media and family and cultural values.
There is a direct link between well-being and academic achievement and vice versa, i.e. well-being is a crucial prerequisite for achievement and achievement is essential for well-being. Physical activity is associated with improved learning and the ability to concentrate. Strong, supportive relationships provide students with the emotional resources to step out of their intellectual ‘comfort zone’ and explore new ideas and ways of thinking, which is fundamental to educational achievement.
Well-being is also important for developing important democratic competences. Positive emotions are associated with the development of flexibility and adaptability, openness to other cultures and beliefs, self-efficacy and tolerance of ambiguity, all of which lie at the heart of the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture.
What are the challenges?
One of the challenges of trying to promote young people’s well-being in school is the multi-faceted nature of well-being. There are a number of different types of well-being, all of which need to be promoted to some extent to create an overall sense of well-being in a person. So, it is not possible to improve students’ well-being at school through single interventions or activities. Rather it requires the development of a ‘culture’ of well-being throughout the whole school and the active involvement of the whole staff, teaching and non-teaching, which can be difficult to achieve.
The promotion of well-being may sometimes appear to conflict with other school priorities, such as academic standards. Unreasonably high expectations, a regime of constant testing or an over-emphasis on the importance of academic performance may actually undermine student well-being.
In many cases schools do not have the freedom to make the changes to school life which might most benefit student well-being. They may have little control, for example, over formal examinations and tests, the content of curricula, the length of the school day or the physical school environment.
Nor have schools control over the many out-of-school influences on student well-being. What happens in the home and the family, local communities or social media can have as much, if not more, influence on student well-being as anything in school.
Finally, developing a sense of well-being in students is made all the more difficult when school staff themselves do not have a positive sense of well-being. Well-being at work is strongly related to stress. Stress at work is related to workload, quality of professional relationships, level of autonomy, clarity about one’s role, availability of support and the opportunity to be involved in changes which affect one’s professional life. High levels of stress can lead to demotivation, lack of job satisfaction and poor physical and mental health, which has a knock-on effect on students’ own well-being.
How can schools get active?
Addressing student well-being at school begins with helping students feel they are each known and valued as an individual in her or his own right, and that school life has a meaning and purpose for them. This can be achieved in a variety of small ways, the cumulative effect of which can have a very powerful influence on students’ sense of well-being. These include:
- providing opportunities for all members of the school community to participate in meaningful decision-making in school, e.g. through consultations, opinion surveys, referenda, electing class representatives, student parliaments, focus groups, in-class feedback on learning activities, and an element of student choice in relation to topics taught and teaching methods used;
- developing a welcoming environment where everyone at school can feel supported and safe through access to meaningful activities, e.g. clubs, societies, interest groups and associations dealing with issues of concern to young people, including health;
- taking steps to reduce the anxiety students feel about examinations and testing through the introduction of less stressful forms of assessment, e.g. formative assessment, peer assessment and involving students in the identification of their own assessment needs;
- using teaching methods that contribute to a positive classroom climate and well-being, e.g. cooperative learning, student-centred methods, self-organised time, outdoor activities;
- finding curriculum opportunities to talk about well-being issues with students, e.g. healthy eating, exercise, substance abuse, positive relationships;
- integrating democratic citizenship and education for intercultural understanding into different school subjects and extra-curricular activities, e.g. openness to other cultures in Religious Education, knowledge and critical understanding of human rights in Social Science, empathy in Literature;
- introducing student-led forms of conflict management and approaches to bullying and harassment, e.g. peer mediation, restorative justice;
- improving the physical environment of the school to make it more student-friendly, e.g. new furniture and fittings, carpeted areas, appropriate colour schemes, safe toilet areas, recreational areas;
- encouraging healthier eating by providing healthy options in the school canteen, e.g. avoiding high amounts of sugar, saturated fats and salt;
- working with parents to enhance students’ achievement and sense of purpose in school, e.g. on healthy food, safe internet use and home-school communications.
Individual initiatives like these can be brought together at the whole-school level through a policy development process which ‘mainstreams’ well-being as a school issue. This means giving attention to the potential effects of new policies on individual well-being - of students, teachers and others. Addressing student well-being at school always goes hand in hand with action to protect the health and well-being of teachers and other staff at school.
[1] OECD (2017). PISA 2015 Results (Volume III), p.40. Students’ Well-Being. Paris, France: OECD Publishing.
[3] Cowburn & Blow, ‘Wise up - Prioritising wellbeing in schools’
[4] Psychology Today, January 2019.
[5] Hargreaves & Shirley (2018), ‘Well-being and Success. Opposites that need to attract’.
Resources on Improving well-being at school
Related schools projects
Address: Kratasiuki Street, Poti
Country: Georgia
Project: I – For Better Future
Working language during the project:
- Georgian
- English
Themes of the Council of Europe project “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:
- Making children’s and students’ voices heard
- Improving well-being at school
Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:
- Valuing cultural diversity
A website was created for the schools from three countries. The students could interact with the teachers and students with different cultural traditions and experience via online conferences and distance workshops. - Autonomous learning skills
The students worked independently and had to communicate with students from different countries. They independently conducted surveys in their schools, made notes, analysed and expressed their opinions, and shared them with the students of the partner school. Presentations were made in English, which helped to strengthen the students' knowledge. - Knowledge and critical understanding of the self
Project participants communicated with each other in English. This strengthened their linguistic knowledge. Research materials were shared with each other through information and communications technology. They critically studied the society of their own country and analysed their habits. Students had the opportunity to improve their communication and writing skills in English.
Target group age range:
- 5-11
- 11-15
Level of education:
- Primary education
- Lower secondary education
Short description of the project:
Understanding civic responsibility is one of the main topics that the school should support.
The initiators of the project contacted Poti Public School No. 11, Kramatorsk Lyceum, Stus No. 8, Ukraine, BP-Hasdeu Theoretical Lucium of the Public Institute, Drochia, Moldova, Jurmala State Gymnasium (Latvia), Al Hadi Women's School , Egypt. They were presented with the project idea and offered the possibility of joining the project to discuss the issue, to share their views and to present their country, speak about social issues and work together on recommendations.
Twenty-five students from the school organising the project (Poti Public School # 12) were involved in the project.
As part of the project, students observed the behaviour of citizens as regards civic engagement and then shared their observations with partner schools online.
Firstly, an online meeting was held between the schoolteachers and students and a plan was drawn up. The meeting was interactive and conducted in English. The schools subsequently worked individually on the following topics: civic responsibility in a democratic society, protection of the environment, human rights and citizens’ responsibilities. The students prepared materials for presentation and at the online meeting exchanged on how the citizens of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia see the above issues.
The following activities were planned and implemented within the project: students participating in the project observed the school yard, street, corridor, classroom, playgrounds and rest areas. They noted how citizens behave, and whether people show civil indifference? What is the reason for their indifference? Students later compared their notes with the other groups. In an online workshop, the students shared their data, facts, descriptions and outlined a common picture and common features. It was interesting for the students that they all drew a very similar general picture.
At a later stage, the students prepared a set of recommendations - the aim of which was described as "I - for a better future" and was to give students a sense of personal responsibility for civic indifference. Students created posters and slogans on what is the role of raising civic self-awareness. At the third online meeting, students shared their descriptions and recommendations, agreed on positions and set out common indicators, recommendations and clear characteristics. A final meeting was planned where school representatives presented their product. At the final stage of the project, an exhibition of the work was organised in the Poti 12th Public School. Students displayed their posters and slogans. Online discussions were held on raising civic self-awareness. As a result of the project, a school club called "I - for a better future" will be created, which will unite the primary and secondary classes of the Poti 12th Public School. The task of the club will be to work together to raise civic self-awareness with the participation of students.
Aims/objectives
- Involve partner schools in the project and create a school network for promoting a democratic culture
- Sharing the experience of different countries and creating a framework for a package of joint recommendations
Expected results/outcomes
- Students participate in the project and gain experience of students from different school cultures.
- The project creates a unified framework of recommendations to be distributed to all participating schools
Changes
- The project created a school network with the participation of schools from different countries.
- Students gained experience in making their own presentation material using international languages.
Challenges you faced
- Different cultures and traditions of the partner schools involved in the project.
- IT skills on online platforms.
Time-frame of the project:
The project lasted for two months
Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:
- Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture
- Living Democracy - manuals for teachers
- Democratic governance of schools
- We CAN!
