Engaging pupils and staff with their school’s #BeeWell survey results
This year, #BeeWell has surveyed the wellbeing of 35,000 Year 9 and 10 pupils across Greater Manchester. As partners in the #BeeWell programme, CORC supports pupil and staff engagement through one to one sessions with schools, delivering targeted learning sets and sessions with pupils. CORC recently worked with pupils in Wigan and staff in Oldham to analyse the data and explore the response and follow-up needed.
The #BeeWell survey was co-created with 150 young people, and listening to young people’s voices is a key principle of the programme. Schools are encouraged to openly share their survey results with pupils for feedback, and to delve deeper into what is working, and what could be improved. Survey results offer an insight into pupils’ experiences, but they often need further exploration to make changes.
Recently, I visited St John Fisher Catholic High School in Wigan to work with pupils to understand and explore their school’s survey results. Pupils were keen to dig deeper into physical activity, differences in gender and social media. Sleep was also an area they highlighted, linking to this year’s Greater Manchester-level findings that there was a notable reduction in young people reporting that they get enough sleep. Pupils came up with wide-ranging suggestions, including choices of sport to increase physical activity, incorporating homework into the school day and nutritional choices, all of which will be fed back to senior staff. It was a great session, made even better by meeting the school’s therapy dog!
Resources that we used in the session are available here and can be adapted for different contexts.
Earlier this year in Oldham, Senior Mental Health Leads came together to explore their #BeeWell data individually and collaborate on ideas for solutions. A key point of discussion was social media and to what extent it linked to the results on loneliness, self-esteem and discrimination. We discussed findings from research featured in the #BeeWell webinar on social media use and wellbeing and contextualised it with staff’s experience in schools. It was interesting to dig into the longitudinal data and monitor the changes over time for pupils in the area, to feed into borough-wide action planning as part of the Oldham whole school and college approach to emotional health and mental wellbeing.
As summer approaches, CORC are delivering learning groups focused on non-mainstream setting and looking forward to next year’s third round of #BeeWell data.
Rachael Grant, CORC Regional Improvement Officer