"The new focus on children’s mental health, though, serves as an important reminder to us that we must couple support for school staff with the ambitions we have for children’s wellbeing. if we don't we will be letting down all school staff.

If we want our school staff to do what’s asked of them, then we need to make sure that their mental health and wellbeing is effectively supported.” Professor Peter Fonagy, CEO of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. Supporting Staff Wellbeing in Schools, Anna Freud, June 2021

Teacher wellbeing is an essential element of building a whole-school approach to emotional health and wellbeing. 

Each school needs to consider how best to support its staff, depending on circumstances. But there are some things that every one of us can do to help strengthen our emotional health and wellbeing. 

Tools to support staff wellbeing

As part of our commitment to staff mental wellbeing Coram Life Education & SCARF is partnering with Neurequity to promote good mental health in the workplace. We want to provide you with access to learning resources, webinars and workshops from trusted a partner.

The vast library of Neurequity’s clinically-written material covers a range of topics from managing stress and anxiety, to self-help methods for support your mental wellbeing. Find out more and access the Neurequity resources.

You'll find a further resources and starting points in our Practical Guide to Looking After Your Own Wellbeing.

Additional information and guidance

A good starting point is The wellbeing wheel - a simple and quick tool for checking and improving your wellbeing in five easy steps, from the NHS.

Supporting staff wellbeing in schools - health and wellbeing guidance, from Anna Freud organisation.

Taking care of teachers - wide range of guidance and support from Education Support organisation.

Whole-school approach to supporting staff wellbeing - a toolkit aimed at school leaders and including guidance about supporting a member of staff with mental health difficulties, from Anna Freud organisation. The Wellbeing Measurement for Schools - Staff Survey within this toolkit provides step-by-step guidance, including a staff questionnaire in Appendix B.

A whole-school approach - key insights and a summary planning framework from Young Minds.

SCARF community network

Join the growing number of teachers using SCARF who've joined our closed SCARF facebook group. For SCARF schools only, this group provides a forum to share ideas and get advice and guidance from other teachers in addition to the support you receive from your SCARF specialist. Go to our facebook page to sign up.

“Parents are the primary educators of children... Parental involvement and engagement serve a purpose, and that purpose is to support the learning and development of children and young people.”  Learning together: Scotland’s national action plan on parental involvement, engagement, family learning and learning at home 2018 – 2021 .

Parents are a major influence on a child’s success in life. While the quality of schools and the nature of the child’s peer group matter significantly, it's from the home that young people derive lasting effects on their character, mindset and attainment. 

An effective partnership with parents and carers can impact greatly on children's emotional wellbeing and attainment.

SCARF support for parental engagement 

“Learning at home can be more than additional school work being sent home. It should be creatively designed, innovative and able to be incorporated into life at home without requiring additional resources that some families may not have access to.” ”The most important feature though, are the people who provide the love, security, encouragement, conversation and positive role models to help the children to thrive. A good home learning environment encourages children and young people to have positive attitudes to learning, to be curious, and to have confidence in themselves.”  Engaging parents and families A toolkit for practitioners Section 4: Learning at home, Education Scotland (July 2021)

Our SCARF at Home resources provide family learning opportunities and activities that children and parents/carers can do together to maintain and enhance wellbeing, as well as supporting children's learning in this subject. There are SCARF at Home resources for 5 of the 6 SCARF suggested half-termly units. View the SCARF at Home resources.

Your curriculum planning and intent need to show evidence of tailoring content to the specific needs of your children and the wider community. 

A single resource is unlikely to have all the teaching resources that will ensure you meet your school's unique needs and your school may sometimes have specific issues that need extra attention. We've created a library of additional, quality-checked resources to save you time.

We also provide resources for special calendar events – e.g. Children's mental health week – and SCARF assemblies to help launch and embed each unit's theme.

There is also a set of additional resources tailored to the needs of Early Years - N and P1.

View the Calendar of Special Events.

View the SCARF Assemblies.

View the Early Years Additional Resources Cupboard

Resources that provide additional visual reminders that contribute to embedding your school values and the values of SCARF across your school, including:

• The 5 SCARF letters (full colour)
• Key questions
• Pictures of Harold and his friends
• The Wellbeing Wheel
• Information about Wear your Scarf to School day

View all the SCARF around school resources.

SCARF certificates can to embed SCARF values. Here are some of the ways that schools use them:

• To reward children who demonstrate these values through their actions and words
• To focus on a different value each week or half term
• For children to be involved - they can award them to their peers who they see showing SCARF behaviors
• For SCARF celebration assemblies where certificates are awarded for especially noticeable acts that reflect the SCARF values.  

Go to the  SCARF certificates