A whole-school approach to managing anxiety in children and young people

Introduction Before we were out of the woods with the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew that additional support would be needed for the pastoral care, mental health and wellbeing of the children we teach. A whole school approach was needed to triage children and identify their needs, putting support in place at different levels, depending on the complexity. We had already seen an increase in levels of anxiety during the lockdowns and beyond. In general, children were less resilient, more anxious and found difficulty in resolving even small conflicts or perceived injustices between themselves. In short, social skills had taken a dive and with them, emotion regulation. More specifically, we saw an increase in anxiety. Context In 2021, our school took part in a ‘How Are You?’ survey that was completed by a number of different schools across our borough. This was partly to find out about the general mental health, physical health and wellbeing of young people but also to see what the main