Assessing need and deciding on aims and outcomes in your school

To ensure your wellbeing champion programme is successful, a needs analysis is necessary. This will provide you with the information you need to ensure your programme is tailored to meet the needs of your school and your pupils.

Consider what the common issues are for children in your setting. Often this is not what we expect, so it is a good idea to speak to your school community about this. The earlier you can get children and young people on board, the better, so that they can shape the development of your programme. You could approach your student council or perhaps put together a questionnaire. You could also use this opportunity to ask about how they would envisage a wellbeing champion package operating, for example, would they like a drop in space, a buddy bench, would they talk to a peer supporter, would they prefer to get these messages in an assembly or in a whole class setting?

To get the point of view of your staff body, you could bring this up at a staff meeting or organise a separate questionnaire. You can also use information gathered from relevant documentation such as the local Growing Up in North Yorkshire survey (2018), any recent inspection reports and your school development plan.

This will then give your programme a focused direction and from here you can build some realistic and achievable aims and outcomes, which will link up coherently with your wider priorities. When you have completed this, you may be in a position to decide which of the three models of wellbeing champion packages you are going to opt for in your setting.

The earlier you can get children and young people on board, the better

Key questions to consider:

• What are the common issues our children and young people face with regards to wellbeing? e.g. feeling lonely, rural isolation, not knowing how to tell people they are struggling, low mood, worries around school work and friendships

• How are you going to find out more about the common issues in your school community? e.g. questionnaire, pupil council, focus group, staff meeting, local surveys or recent reports/plans

• What is your aim for the programme? e.g. to promote wellbeing and a healthy lifestyle by increased awareness of these issues in school through pupils educating their peers

• What outcomes do you hope for? e.g. to reduce the number of pupils identifying as feeling low most of the time

• Which model of wellbeing champion support are you going to put in place in your school? What will this look like? e.g. option 1 educational wellbeing champions who will form a sub group on the school council and meet monthly to discuss, design and implement whole school campaigns around wellbeing (e.g. assemblies, fundraisers and wellbeing activities)