When pupils leave lockdown, and return to school it is anticipated that staff will face a range of pastoral, wellbeing and behaviour issues. Teacher and mental health first-aider Amy Sayer considers the challenges that lie ahead...

As a teacher, it seems that there is an expectation that we instinctively know what to say and do with students who are experiencing mental health struggles. However, the coronavirus pandemic will have created a whole new range of traumatic experiences that will have affected many children in different ways.

These might include, for example, financial difficulties their families have faced, witnessing or experiencing domestic violence or sexual abuse as a result of “lockdown” conditions or the death of friends or family members.

Elsewhere, many key-worker children will have been worried about their parents working in dangerous conditions and may have had disrupted and unusual childcare arrangements as a result.

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