A whitepaper from edtech specialists, Education Horizons – Learning & wellbeing in schools: A new perspective on supporting learning and wellbeing in schools – highlights student voice, combined with greater investment into teacher training, as important factors in enhancing student wellbeing, as well as positive outcomes and relationships in the classroom.
One key question the whitepaper aims to address asks is: What if great teaching and learning was the biggest in-school driver of student wellbeing?
But with many educators and policy makers viewing student learning differently, and many schools finding that allocating extra time, resources and space on a crowded curriculum is increasingly difficult, this white paper showcases educational experts who challenge old thinking.
According to the whitepaper, co-authored by Rowan Clark, Duncan McGauchie and Kim Edwards, the conceptual and practical separation of learning and wellbeing work in classrooms could be making the mental health programs many schools offer ineffective.
Why identifying – and integrating – student voice matters
Enabling students to respond to some core questions helps put student voice at the heart of classroom culture.
When teachers are focused on feedback and willing to listen to students’ answers to questions such as ‘where am I going?’, ‘how am I going?’ and ‘where to next?’, the results can be transformative for both wellbeing and learning.
According the to whitepaper’s findings, understanding how to utilise these processes more effectively can help teachers measure student engagement – and then actively improve it – in real time.
Back in 2015, globally respected education expert, Professor John Hattie recognised the powerful force that student voice can bring to learning/teaching debates and wrote about a ‘ need to include student voice about teacher impact’ and ‘to hear the students’ view of how they are cared about and respected as learners, how captivated they are by the lessons, how they can see errors as opportunities for learning, how they can speak up and share their understanding and how they can provide and seek feedback so they know where to go next’ to the conversation.
Listening to student-to-teacher feedback
In Graham Nuthall’s book, the ‘Hidden lives of learners’ (2007), putting microphones on secondary students and recording more than 2000 hours of what students said to each other about their classroom learning revealed many things about how learners seek help for themselves. It also showed that between 40 – 50 percent of what is taught in a classroom setting is already known by the student learner — and that the feedback students provide to teachers is a useful resource that should not be ignored..
When it comes to helping schools lift student wellbeing and academic outcomes, the paper’s authors believe schools should take a more unified approach and argue that the overlap between effective wellbeing strategies and effective teaching and learning strategies is significant.
A better pathway to improved student wellbeing
It’s a view that questions the value of existing student wellbeing programs in schools, which typically separate the issue of student wellbeing from learning in the classroom – and could actually be holding schools back from achieving genuine progress in both areas.
By unpicking misconceptions around the issue — including the thinking that we have to get wellbeing right first, before we can do learning — the whitepaper highlights the value of encouraging teachers to bring learning and wellbeing together. To make that happen, greater investment in teachers and teaching itself should be a forward-thinking focus.
