Our Journey

Where it all began

In 2017, after a decade working in London schools, I had one of those disconcerting 3am teacher epiphanies. As a school, it felt that we were ticking all of the boxes but something was missing.

At the time, as any school leader would do, I grabbed the latest Ofsted framework. I arrived at the personal development section and listed highlights of our offer including school clubs, community projects, visits, career days and updated policies but there was one word that sounded the alarm: integrated.

Was our approach to developing character, wellbeing and active citizenship truly coordinated? The answer was a resounding no. And, I believe, it was this lack of cohesion that led to an increase in anxiety, absences and avoidant behaviours that we were starting to see.  

So, the search began for a robust educational programme that actually taught resilience, empathy and wellbeing, while integrating this into our school culture to improve behaviours for learning. Yes, there were schemes to support individuals and some powerful individual concepts, but I couldn’t find a personal development programme with interactive lessons that was effectively sequenced from Nursery to Year 6.

A few weeks later, I presented this issue to my headteacher, hoping for answers.

“It sounds like we have found a shiny new bullet point for your appraisal,” was the answer I received.   

I had my brief: to design a primary-school personal development curriculum that included the explicit teaching of skills that helped children build their resilience, their oracy, their empathy and create – if this was possible – a mentally healthy school culture that improved pupil outcomes.

Ok, so doing this in a year was a little optimistic! What followed was a nine-year, cross-sector study in schools where I delivered hundreds of lessons, while consulting with numerous sets of school leaders, psychologists, probation professionals, parents and support staff.

But above all, we listened to the children – what was relevant to them, what they needed and what we could do to improve.

The issues that I highlighted all of those years ago have sadly developed and are more acute now. With anxiety overwhelming our school communities and negative influences abounding, the education sector is having to act. After nine years of refinement within schools, I am confident that Let’s Talk is the universal, integrated provision school leaders have been looking for to tackle the mental health crisis and boost the wellbeing and outcomes of our children.