Assess - Social, emotional and mental health

If the frequency, duration and/or intensity of the concerns continue or increase despite the whole school approach and adjustments to quality first teaching, a more detailed and structured ‘Assess, Plan, Do, Review’ process needs to be followed.

The purpose of the further assessment is to pinpoint specific areas of concern and investigate the root of the problem which will enable school to provide targeted support and intervention. 

Below are examples of assessments that a school could use dependant on the area of concern: 

For all concerns, the following is recommended to gather more information:

• Discussion with key adults at home and at school, e.g. using solution-focussed questioning.
  
  
• Asking child/young person for their views - these could be recorded in a One Page Profile or a Pupil Passport.
  
  
• Attendance data - click here for more information on Emotionally based school refusal.
  
  
• If other appropriate external agencies have been involved, the information that other professionals have provided needs to be considered.

As part of this information gathering it is important that the behaviours causing concern are measured and quantified in order to assess the quality of the interventions that are subsequently put in place.

Tools to measure/quantify behaviours that have disruptive effects include:

• Records of the frequency of behaviour, such as ABC records (861 KB), STAR records (460 KB) or Coding charts (475 KB)
  
  
• Referring to the escalation cycle when describing behavioural responses
  
  
• An assessment of the classroom environment, e.g. an  environmental checklist (92 KB) completed by teachers in school
  
  
• Observations in class, e.g. Structured time-based observations
  
  
• Assessment of the impact of the behaviours on the learning of others, eg Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
  
  
• A  risk assessment (47 KB) may be needed.

For concerns regarding general wellbeing:

• Tools to assess, intervene and evaluating for mental health support, e.g.
  
  
• • The Mental Health and Wellbeing Toolkit for School
    
    
  • Emotional Literacy Assessment/Intervention (Age 7-11 and 11-16)
    
    
  • Warwick/Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale
    
    
  • Adolescent Well-being Scale (free)
    
    
• Tools to help understand a child/young person’s social and emotional needs, e.g.
• • Boxall Profile,
    
    
• Tools to assess self-concept/self-image, e.g.
   
  • Pupil Attitudes to Self and School - PASS Survey

• Tools that assess anxiety, e.g. Spence's Children's Anxiety Scale

• Tools that assess resilience, e.g.
  
  
• • Interactive Resilience Framework,
    
    
  • Kidcope
    
    
• Tools to assess attachment and relationships with peers and peer acceptance, e.g.
  
  
• • sociograms.

It may be useful to note that some behaviours may arise as a result of language concerns (see the Snow Report) so a more detailed language assessment may be required. Please refer to the Communication and Interaction Section of this toolkit for more details.

The Well-being for Education Return

The Well-being for Education Return is a nationwide project developed and funded by the DfE and the DHSC in partnership with public health England and NHS England. The project included the delivery of two free webinars (links to the webinars are below) that were initially developed by MindEd in conjunction with the Anna Freud Centre. The webinars have been adapted and contain information on local mental health services. The content of the webinars include:-

Webinar 1

• Whole school approach to well-being and mental health.
  
  
• What neuroscience teaches us about how children behave under pressure.
  
  
• What staff can do to nurture well-being and resilience.
  
  
• Principles of psychological first aid.

Webinar 2

• Re-cap on a whole school approach to social and emotional wellbeing.
  
  
• Focus on specific areas, how we identify and support. Areas include information on bereavement and loss, anxiety and low mood and stress and trauma.
  
  
• Staff well-being and an introduction to a group problem based model.
  
  
• Signposting to local support services.