Firstly, I have to state that I am in no means a trained professional for helping students with mental health struggles.
I have the same basic training as all teachers, and I have completed a Mental Health Champion course with Place2Be.
However, mental health is a huge area of interest for me and I have found myself to be a teacher that students have come to for advice.
One of the pieces of advice I have seen benefit students with anxiety and stress, is the worry jar.
This is not something I invented, though I cannot explicitly state who did create this idea.
The worry jar is simple, the child will write down all the things that are on their mind, or that are making them worried. The option of either allows them to clear their mind and focus, or identify areas where they need advice.
This also allows you, the teacher, to identify if there are any safeguarding or inclusion issues that you'll need to flag up.
The worry jars are not made to be kept, but instead thrown away, as a visual representation of expressing the worry, getting advice for it, or just getting it out of the way for a little while.
I have used these in cases of first day back jitters, and in more serious inclusion situations - their simple nature allows them to be versatile.
It is something that you are able to do easily as a classroom teacher, form tutor, pastoral worker, or teaching assistant. (Sorry, other school staff, I'm just thinking of those that are student facing today!)
Alternatively, you can utilise the jar for something else.
Perhaps an angry jar, or a doodle jar - because the point remains the same the entire time, once you're finished, the issue is out of your head and something that you can work with, or throw away as a relief mechanism.
I admit, I have always been the kind of reader that uses research and education books to back up a point I am making, more so than to develop and better understand my own skills and flaws.
However, during my PGCE and NQT years I have found myself returning to Alex Quigley's The Confident Teacher, and reminding myself that it is not only human to err, but to also entirely forget your techniques in the classroom.
Through a combination of almost conversational narrative and educational advice, Quigley creates a collection of chapters that give you comfort in your profession.
There are a lot (and I mean a lot) of traditional pedagogy essays and anthologies that are still referenced in modern teacher training - as a woman in STEM, I found that frequently the narrative was either completely biased and unrepresentative of the modern classrooms I teach in, or more frequently, I found myself twisting the narratives of humanities and science classrooms to fit my subject.
Still, Quigley manages to present techniques, activities and advice with an awareness that his experience is in an English classroom - one that differs greatly to say, my Technology workshop or a PE teacher's tennis court.
It reminds us that we are all in the same boat: a room filled with 20-30 teenagers, or (if you have much more patience than me) 20-30 children under the age of 11. It is entirely valid to think teachers are incredible, but we are not deities, or miracle workers. Realistically, we are juiced up on very strong coffee and that one good joke we made on Monday to our tough Y9 class.
This awareness is what makes The Confident Teacher an incredibly important book for teachers in their PGCE year, as it humanises you.
I was guilty, as all trainee teachers are, of getting very cocky when I finally 'got it' - when my feedback was laden with positives and constructive criticism, when students listened and I felt like a teacher. But the reality is, you have to respect that.
Teaching is an emotional profession, and Quigley manages to narrate that in a balance of understanding and learned knowledge that isn't quite a telling off, but certainly a crisp reminder that you always have something new to learn or develop.
The Confident Teacher is a must-read for trainee teachers, but also a comforting flick-through for more experienced teachers on tough days.
Straight off the bat, I'm not entirely sure what I wish to come from creating this account.
I created a mind map of ideas, ranging from infographics for teachers, to book reviews as an outlet for myself, and I have yet to make a decision entirely.
I have such a multitude of interests inside and outside of my career, and with my hopes of completing an Education MA in the next two years, I feel involving myself in some kind of writing and researching process can only come to (selfishly) benefit myself at the least.
After immaturely taking a bare minimum approach to pedagogy, I find myself in the final term of my NQT year sheepishly admitting that everything I did listen to, I utilise daily - my interests have matured to involve the topics I found myself wanting to grasp in previous years, such as our ability to curate a socioeconomic impact and gender in education.
As a 24 year-old with a hamster, a lot of plants, and an aptitude for touch typing I felt that nodding to my youth and returning to the website I spent my teens years on was a comforting way to explore this newfound desire to write, research and educate outside the classroom (oh how ironic, if only 'I hate virtual teaching' Chloë could see me now.)
