As UNICEF reports that 700 million days of education could be lost this academic year in the UK, Jon Murphy, NACE Associate and recently retired headteacher of Llanfoist Fawr and Llavihangel Primary Schools Federation, reflects on the need to focus on social and emotional wellbeing as schools prepare to return, and asks if the focus on health and wellbeing in the new Curriculum for Wales could be helpful to all schools.

Over a shockingly short timescale we have become all too familiar with a vocabulary that was most certainly not part of our daily conversation only a few months ago. “Lockdown”, “social isolation” and “social distancing” have become common parlance regardless of age, occupation or the part of the world in which we live. The coronavirus has undeniably changed the world as we know it. As we learn to live with the consequences of COVID-19 and the “new normal”, and as we start to contemplate a return to school, we will be teaching children to use and apply these new concepts to ensure the continuing safety of all. Like no other period in history, we will be sharply focusing our work to ensure the health and wellbeing of children and young people is secure. Not an easy task when children are naturally gregarious and demonstrative, and when their basic instinct is to be tactile with their peers, particularly the youngest of our charges.

Backed by support and resources from schools, commendable efforts have been made to home educate children. Anecdotally we know there has been considerable variance in the provision made, and there has been a very definite re-affirmation that there are few substitutes for a classroom staffed by qualified professionals. As children return to school, they will be at very different stages in their readiness to learn.

Backed by support and resources from schools, commendable efforts have been made to home educate children. We know there has been considerable variance in the provision made, and there has been a very definite re-affirmation that there are few substitutes for a classroom staffed by qualified professionals. The DfE last week published school case studies presenting a range of emerging practice. As children return to school, they will be at very different stages in their readiness to learn.

Layers of trauma and “the unseen monster”

Without doubt, young people will relish the social interaction of being with peers again. However, there will also be challenges after an unprecedented prolonged period spent out of school. For months many children have been kept at home, told that this is a safe sanctuary and the world beyond is not. Children are incredibly perceptive. Some will have absorbed the stress and fear of their parents and carers, adding to their own insecurities. Some could be painfully aware of the financial impact the virus has had on family income, adding yet another layer of trauma.

When children are integrated back into society and school, many will be taking tentative steps filled with trepidation, re-entering a world which was for so long seen as a place of danger. As they leave their families for the first time, some will fear for their parents or carers, many of whom are employed on the frontline as key workers.

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, renowned for his work on child development, simply but very profoundly stated: “children think differently to adults”. With this in mind, we should be aware of how children might perceive COVID-19 and what role we can play in school to mitigate any negative impact on their emotional wellbeing. More able learners may well be able to grasp and understand at an abstract level what the virus actually is. Meanwhile for learners still operating at a concrete level, particularly the very young, the virus is a mysterious thing that they can’t see, smell, taste or feel. It remains something that in their imagination can be conjured up in so many manifestations. Film directors of the horror genre are very aware that the unseen monster is far more terrifying than anything that is visible.

Preparing for a safe return to school

This week the DfE released plans for a phased reopening of schools in England from 1 June at the earliest. Meanwhile Welsh Government has launched the Stay Safe Stay Learning initiative, with Education Minister Kirsty Williams setting out five principles to guide thinking about a safe return to education. The first principle, quite rightly, is the health, safety and emotional wellbeing of children, young people and staff.

COVID-19 has dominated life all day every day for the past few months and we should be under no delusions about its long-term impact; as such we need to be prepared to plan long-term. Safeguarding the health, safety and emotional wellbeing of all in our school communities will be both an immediate and long-term priority; school doors will not open again without planning and preparation for what will be a carefully considered and measured transition back to school life.

Children’s experience of school life is going to be vastly different to what they were used to before school doors were forced to close so abruptly. When schools recommence, we will have to teach them a whole new set of sophisticated behaviours and values relating to social distancing and peer interaction. As stated by the Welsh Minister, physical, mental and emotional health is more important than anything at the moment – an area which had already been brought to the fore in the new Curriculum for Wales.

Bringing health and wellbeing education to the fore

Previous to the pandemic, schools in Wales had been charged with reimagining the educational offer for children and young people through development of the new curriculum. One of the six Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs) that will constitute the new orders is Health and Wellbeing, an area that will take centre stage when schools return. Welsh Government sees this AoLE as an area that “will help to foster a whole-school approach that enables health and well-being to permeate all aspects of school life”. The component parts of this AoLE – development of physical health, mental health, and emotional and social wellbeing – must be core to the education of all children on their return to school. Initial provision will need to focus on transition activities that support social and emotional literacy; we cannot even begin to teach the academic subjects until emotional wellbeing is secure.

Currently, alongside the task of teaching, education professionals in Wales are planning for the new curriculum and testing new ways of working for the future. It would seem prudent, considering the current health crisis, to bring their vision for the new curriculum into sharp focus now and to prioritise and even accelerate the development of the Health and Wellbeing AoLE. There is an urgent need to plan for a series of activities and experiences that rebuild children’s confidence and resilience in light of what has now become a part of their daily lives. We must teach them how to live with the pandemic and the part they must play to keep themselves and others safe. Now is the time to be innovative and to reimagine this element of the curriculum because now is the time that it is most needed.

Moving forward: a stronger, wiser generation

It is said that stopping the pandemic is “the most urgent shared endeavour of our times”, and one thing is for sure: when children return to school their health, safety and wellbeing is being placed in the capable of hands of a workforce that will help them learn to interact and exist in a changed world. Schools who made the investment of training staff in emotional literacy initiatives such as Thrive and ELSA will reap the benefits of being able to provide support for the most fragile of those returning to a world that can now seem especially frightening and uncertain. We can take heart in knowing that most learners are innately resilient and will adapt with few problems as schools evolve. We have the tools with the Wellbeing AoLE to be able plan and offer the best provision for keeping all in school safe. The principles and rationale behind the AoLE are sound and the present is the time we would benefit most from the best practice it advocates. As we help children to adapt to a different way of life, who knows, we may even nurture a generation of learners who will be inspired to go onto careers of caring for others or even to be the innovators that prevent such a crisis happening again.

The shadow cast by COVID-19 has forced children to grow up very quickly. It has already stolen a significant portion of their schooling, and we must not allow it to rob them of their precious childhood. As educationalists we are in the privileged position of guiding children as positively as we can through this unprecedented period of history, so they emerge stronger, wiser, safer and more conscious of health and wellbeing than any generation that has gone before.