Angela Evans

Everyone working in education, and beyond, is fully aware of the current mental health crisis for pupils. Understanding and Reducing Anxiety in the Primary School combines the expert knowledge of a specialist in formative assessment, a child and adolescent psychotherapist and an outstanding headteacher to address how we may tackle this issue and improve the wellbeing of children in our schools. Formative assessment, one of the key techniques explored within this book, has explicit links with reducing anxiety: raising children’s belief in their ability to achieve and giving them clear frameworks of learning intentions and success criteria as well as in-the-moment feedback so that they are reassured and able to voice any worries while they are working. Written in a practical and accessible manner, the authors unpack the psychology behind issues related to students’ mental health and provide illustrative, relatable anecdotes and helpful strategies to support a positive, anxiety-free learning environment. The book is divided into four distinct sections:Why is everyone so anxious and what can we do about it? Understanding and dealing with extreme behaviourSupporting the learning to reduce anxietyCreating a containing and compassionate schoolThis is a must read for anyone working in a primary school. Readers will benefit from learning strategies to reduce the anxiety of the children they work with and to support the wellbeing of the wider educational community.

Everyone working in education, and beyond, is fully aware of the current mental health crisis for pupils. Understanding and Reducing Anxiety in the Primary School combines the expert knowledge of a specialist in formative assessment, a child and adolescent psychotherapist and an outstanding headteacher to address how we may tackle this issue and improve the wellbeing of children in our schools. Formative assessment, one of the key techniques explored within this book, has explicit links with reducing anxiety: raising children’s belief in their ability to achieve and giving them clear frameworks of learning intentions and success criteria as well as in-the-moment feedback so that they are reassured and able to voice any worries while they are working. Written in a practical and accessible manner, the authors unpack the psychology behind issues related to students’ mental health and provide illustrative, relatable anecdotes and helpful strategies to support a positive, anxiety-free learning environment. The book is divided into four distinct sections:Why is everyone so anxious and what can we do about it? Understanding and dealing with extreme behaviourSupporting the learning to reduce anxietyCreating a containing and compassionate schoolThis is a must read for anyone working in a primary school. Readers will benefit from learning strategies to reduce the anxiety of the children they work with and to support the wellbeing of the wider educational community.

I will be skinny. Next year when I come back to school, I will not be fat, and these people will not torture me, Derrick thought as he sat on the bus the last day of school. Every school day for the past year I was bullied from the moment I climbed on the bus. Kids made endless taunts and cruel comments. Most of the time they were just verbal abuse, but as I think about it, some were physical, like the time my shirt got ripped just because it was new. It was as if the bullies knew I was proud of it, and they wanted to take it from me. Or the time I had a hair style I really liked and they messed it up before school just to take away any confidence that I tried to muster. The spitting was bad too. The verbal taunts went on and on and were targeted at my weight. I've taken it for too long. Now I've had enough As I walked home from the bus stop one day, I thought of ways to lose weight over the summer. There has to be a way for me to be skinny when I go back to school. It would be my first year of high school and I knew I had the chance to make a new start. Middle school had been miserable and even though I liked the academics, I hated the other kids and the way they treated me. High school will be better, and I had the summer to make it work. I know I will have to starve, but it will be worth the effort. Not that I really want to be popular, I just don't want to be picked on anymore. When people say kids can be cruel, they do not truly know the extent that kids will go to when the victim is an outcast. They make it their life's work to make the outcast miserable. I had a few friends who tried to help me when they saw it happen, but they could not always be around, and I had to fend for myself. There was not a lot that they could do to fix the problem because it had gone on too long. I was now the target of multiple bullies, and it was not going to stop just because my friends defended me. It would take more than that to make them go away. My nephew and a few other people on the bus stood up for me, but they did not catch all the bullying. I hated to involve them; I did not want them to be a target as well, so I told them it was fine. When I walked in that day after school, my mom asked me about my day and I said that it was fine. I did not want to tell her what had really happened. She would only worry and call the school. Most of the teachers took the side of the bullies because those kids were athletic and popular. So calling the school was a waste of time and made it worse. Besides, school was over for the summer, and next year was going to be different.* * * I will not have to come in feeling this way ever again. I am going to be the one thing that I want the most next year. It is not skinny or popular; all I really want is to be invisible.