This last week, we've had the pleasure of welcoming many new colleagues to our ever-growing RISE Up community.
Over the last three weeks, we have also partnered with:
Liverpool Hope University
Plymouth Marjon University
Birmingham City University
to provide training in trauma-informed practice and the RISE Up methodology to their awesome students.
It’s fantastic to partner with these forward-thinking universities that are equipping future teachers with the tools to make a real difference for their young people. A warm welcome to all the new students who have joined our global RISE Up community – it’s great to have you on the RISE Up team!
One of the benefits of being part of our community is sharing best practice and learning from each other.
This week we are focusing on the brilliant St. Patrick’s Catholic Primary School based in Toxteth, Liverpool.
They are doing incredible work for the young people they serve. We are delighted to partner with them as part of the Liverpool RISE Up programme.
In this case study, their brilliant PE lead, Katie O’Callaghan, talks us through their RISE Up programme and the difference it has made for their young people.
Intent
‘The aim of our RISE UP programme was to create a whole-school approach to mental wellbeing building on the positive relationships we already have with the children. We want our children to have the strategies, understanding and vocabulary to be able to self-regulate and to improve their mental health and wellbeing.
We wanted to focus on this aspect as one thing our school and staff excel in already is having positive relationships with pupils and families and really getting to know the children as individuals.
We are an Attachment and Trauma Informed School, being part of the Liverpool Hearts Project.
We were graded Good by Ofsted back in December 2023, but the opening paragraph of our report showed that they understood the value and the essence of our school. When asked “What is it like to attend this school?” they said:
“This school provides exceptional levels of care to its pupils. Pupils are treated with warmth and kindness. They are greeted each morning by friendly smiles from their teachers. Pupils love their school and are proud to be a member of the ‘St Patrick’s family’. Pupils are happy and safe and thrive in this nurturing environment.”
Implementation
We want our children to be good citizens and although we have a good level of engagement with PE, we wanted to highlight the other parts of Physical Literacy and give our children the tools to look at and at least have the vocabulary for all the different aspects.
So we created an Active Champion certificate for our whole school assemblies, in which we have the strands of Physical Literacy that are highlighted, e.g. motivation, confidence, physical competence and knowledge and understanding - so they actually can talk about what it means to be healthy and the positive impacts of this on our wellbeing.
Assemblies
Each Monday morning assembly also includes an aspect of the lessons from RISE UP, which initially started as myself introducing the terms, Repeaters, Stress Busters, Energisers and Team Sports.
It then lead on to a little discussion around each of the lessons that I would paraphrase or adapt to make it suitable for both KS1 and KS2 in a whole-school setting. We have practised body scanning, I have spoken to them about positive self-talk and trying to override negative thoughts with positive ones.
The children may have lots to offer, but even in those where it is quieter, I can see that lots of our children are having their own internal reflection and this is having a positive impact.
Building Self Confidence and Self Kindness
One of our amazing pastoral staff has a ’Think Yourself Great’ after-school club, which has a big focus on developing self-confidence for our students who are quite vulnerable and have very poor mental health and self-worth.
Miss McKenna has incorporated some of the RISE UP lessons, particularly the Mental Fitness Pyramid as a repeated focus and showing the children how a strong sense of confidence can lay the foundation for so much.
There are a few children in this club who are slowly starting to come out of their shell and I think the understanding they have of the why and how these things affect us, is deepening their understanding.
Movement for Mental Wellbeing
Particularly in KS1, we try to implement movement throughout the school day as brain breaks to help children regulate before work. These can be fun games, like Mario Run, but now the exercises are being labelled as repeaters and energisers to the children and little by little we’re seeing their understanding of this.
We also model choosing a specific move for a specific reason, e.g. “I’m feeling a little low and left out, I know a Team Sport will help me feel loved!” or, “I’m finding it really hard to focus, let’s do some Repeaters!”. This is also having a great impact on our SEND pupils who are thriving from this movement to help regulate.
Kindness Cards
We have also introduced the Kindness Cards as something the children can do independently for each other and teachers model using this and giving cards to the students.
Our current Y6s have been having some conflict throughout this school year, so setting aside some time for each student to write out a Kindness Card has relieved some tension in the classroom too.
Developing a Wellbeing Vocabulary
As we are part of the Liverpool Hearts Project, our initial training revolved around staff understanding Zones of Regulation. We have displays in each class and teachers spend lots of time referring to these zones and modelling our own tactics for Self-Regulation.
We have again incorporated the language around Repeaters, Energisers as tools to self-regulate and get us back into ‘the green zone’ ready for learning - but also modelling this going beyond the classroom.
Active Play + Mindfulness
As a whole school strategy, we have also implemented a 30-20-10 structure for lunctimes, where the children get 30 minutes in the hall to eat, 20 minutes of free play time and then the last 10 minutes are for the children to come back into class, calm down and do some mindfulness activities, such as colouring or just quiet reading, to get themselves back into the Green Zone and ready to learn.
Inclusive Teams to Develop Psychological Safety and Belonging
We are trying to make our play times more inclusive, offering team sports for those children who may not always engage in physical activity.
Cricket has been a hugely popular choice amongst our pupils, so now we have cricket equipment for play times and the children are really enjoying this. Staff get involved with their games and it is a great time.
The relationships that we build with pupils and families in our school community are so important and because of this, we have had many pupils feel safe and secure in our school.
This approach has particularly benefitted one of our EAL students. We had a little boy join our Y2 class in October 2023. We were told by family and his previous school that he just could not settle there, he was always distressed and no one could see a solution. He then spent 1 week in another primary school with the same effect and then was accepted at St. Patrick’s.
It would often take him a good hour or so to settle when he came into school and would cry hysterically at home time when he wasn’t picked up straight away. But a few weeks later, little by little, he felt safe and loved by his teachers.
He is now like a completely different child who runs into school every morning. He is confident enough to take part in team games on the yard and has made wonderful friendships.
Building on our strengths
With being in a disadvantaged area, we have a lot of children who have experienced or are still experiencing ACEs. Many have had social workers and when this happens our families and school work closely together to support the children involved.
We have mental-health intervention programmes, such as DESTY and ‘Think Bricks’ that focus on children’s emotional literacy. We have seen really positive impacts from combining our various approaches with the RISE Up programme so that all our children feel safe confiding in their teachers.
Impact
I have noticed that our children are beginning to have the tools and the confidence to select strategies to help them in different situations, e.g. they are aware that to help concentration, repeaters are useful, etc. They are beginning to reflect internally on how they feel, what they may be worried about and how to approach the situation to change it.
Our children with low self-esteem are slowly beginning to have the understanding of the impacts of positive self-talk and how this confidence is a huge foundation for great mental health.
I completed an adapted version of the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale to measure my perceptions of students' wellbeing for our Think Yourself Great group pre and post completing the RISE Up programme.
As you can see from the image, all areas improved apart from 1 category which stayed the same.
The RISE Up programme has helped us develop our children's engagement, mental health and personal development. It has also enabled us to support our most vulnerable children more effectively.
I also completed the School Wellbeing Scorecard pre and post implementation to measure the impact on our provision.
Our provision has increased from 49% to 88% within 5 months of starting the programme. We have improved in each aspect.
Pre
Post
Next Steps –
We will continue to embed the RISE Up tools and knowledge for our children more consistently from the start of the year so that our children are using this vocabulary independently and are confident to do so.
As a school we are also looking at making play times more meaningful and implementing something similar to a ‘play wrapped in care’ approach, inspired by Our Lady Immaculate who are also part of the Liverpool RISE Up programme.’
Thank You Inspirational Teachers
At Future Action, we want to thank Katie O’Callaghan and the team at St Patricks who go above and beyond for their young people every single day. We love partnering with them and many similar teachers across the country who show what can be possible in a post-lockdown education world.
We would also like to thank Sport England, Youth Sport Trust and Liverpool Virtual Schools, for funding the Liverpool RISE Up programme and the brilliant team at Liverpool School Sports Partnership.
Do you want to improve your students' wellbeing?
Take the first steps here by completing our 'School Wellbeing Scorecard here.
This action will help you map your school's wellbeing provision in 3 minutes and identify the key areas to focus on for your setting.
You will receive a personalised report and a complimentary login to our taster ‘RISE Up’ course. Here you will be able to experience Step 1 and 2 of our 9 Step RISE Up teacher training course.
Join our waiting list
We offer a range of services from courses, consultancy, keynote speaking and our book 'Time to RISE Up'.
To express an interest in exploring building a partnership with us, join our waiting list here:
Make sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter here so you are kept informed and don't miss out on the latest wellbeing insights.
Have a brilliant week.
Comments