This is my first personal blog reflecting on the development and delivery of our National Schools Spiritual Wellbeing Programme
1st March 2026
‘All you need is love . . .’ And some time to reflect.
This is my first public blog about our project and it describes some very useful and relevant learning that arose from a training that I mismanaged.
My working career since my thirties has been in adult education, first with special needs teenagers and adults, and then in workshops and courses focusing on psychospiritual development. I was accustomed to adults being difficult in class and in group processes. A core skill that an adult group facilitator has to learn, is to be adaptable and calm in the face of disrupters – a skillset in fact for all educators.
Over the decades I have frequently worked with groups that contain people who are anxious, exhausted, have explicit mental health challenges, and are going into, are in or are coming out of burnout. I know very well – from my own personal process and from working with many others – that everyone’s psychospiritual development can be a challenging and difficult process. Being realistic, most of us (all?) are sitting on tension, anxiety and unresolved psychological issues; and we can therefore be easily triggered into abreaction. That is normal and very human. An experienced facilitator must learn how to manage and steer these processes with patience, kindness and some skill.
But on this occasion, going into this school, I forgot my skillset. I was so focused on being professionally appropriate that I had put on the guise, the persona, of a professional CPD consultant and trainer for the educational sector.
I was also overconfident about the concepts and practices I was sharing. With a team of colleagues, I have facilitated them many times, and continuously witnessed their positive and beneficial effects. They provide the foundation of our vocational qualification in spiritual wellbeing and are part of a wider movement that is integrating spiritual practices with healthcare.
I was intent therefore on delivering the practices that I knew would deliver results! There would be actionable outcomes that would meet Ofsted and SIAMS requirements! I was performing to fit in with a culture that is driven by managerial goals and statistics.
So, when I was in that school that day, I lacked compassionate insight into the stressed and exhausted state of the teachers. I spoke about and led the group into a mindful self-management exercise that required somatic awareness of their feelings and kindness to themselves. As a stranger, asking someone who is exhausted, uncomfortable and stressed, to stop, switch on a kind attitude and feel into their embodied experience is provocative. It just creates more pressure. Any ambient sense of goodwill or tolerance evaporated. I had not guided the personal and group dynamic with any wisdom.
My fellow trainers were disturbed and irritated by the experience. Talking with them several weeks later, I shared how I had mismanaged the session and that it was my responsibility to deliver in a way that was appropriate for our students and their circumstances.
For me, my major reflection was how I had compromised my experience and skillset. I was so drawn into the general educational culture of delivery and results, that I had missed the wood for the trees. Head teachers, senior staff and teachers are more than their roles. They are people. Vulnerable, wise, generous . . .
I delivered to their roles and not to them as people.
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What this might signify for how our project is to be developed, was mirrored by another recent experience with a different group of teachers. On this occasion, our whole approach was more emotionally literate. We started by building rapport with an attitude of kindness, acknowledging the challenges and pressures they faced. I shared how I had supported several head teachers as they met mental health challenges.
After acknowledging the pressures that everyone in this group experienced, we then expressed heartfelt appreciation for their impressive soft skills – of kindness, patience, care and generous leadership. This is a reality often forgotten about teachers – their remarkable soft skills. As well as delivering the curricula, they have also to manage the emotional dynamics and behaviour of large groups of children. (Remember all the parents who completely lost the plot when they had to manage just their own children during covid.) Following our naming of their kindness and emotional generosity, we then reminded them of a consequence for many. Being kind all day — to colleagues, to pupils, to parents — was exhausting.
As we set the scene for the session, acknowledging their daily pressures, the ambience, the dynamic, of the group changed, became trusting and transparent. ‘This is the first time that anyone has given me care, as a head teacher, for all the stress I carry from my job,’ one said. The group then committed to coming back together to help develop the project.
Understanding the psychodynamics here is important. Teachers experience relentless emotional pressure. No wonder that recent research found that 72% of head teachers said their job was affecting their mental health and 46% required mental health support.*
It is also important to recognise the social psychology of a school. It is well understood that the mood and atmosphere of a school are led by the behaviour of the head teacher and their SLT. Social contagion is very real.
It also well researched that the quality of relationship between teachers and students is critically significant for students’ wellbeing and achievement. The success of students can be underpinned by a supportive and kind relationship with their teachers.
Appreciating this very sensitive social dynamic – emotional atmosphere and relationships — we can see more clearly the heavy load carried by head teachers and their staff. They are not just delivering for academic success. They lead the whole mood, culture and relational dynamics of their schools.
Understanding all this, at a very existential and human level, we can clearly assert that teachers, SLT members and heads in particular, need genuine appreciation, support and care.
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Given the pressures, responsibilities and demands of their careers, how can we realistically give teachers care and support in a way that does not create just another demand on their time and capacity?
There are three factors that point to the solution of spiritual wellbeing practices.
First — Acts of Parliament, Ofsted and SIAMS stipulate that spirituality be part of every child’s education.
Second — There is overwhelming and urgent acknowledgment that there is a mental health crisis in schools, for both students and staff.
Third — There is overwhelming academic evidence for the health benefits of spirituality.
These three elements together validate and can create the impetus for spiritual wellbeing practices to be incorporated into schools. How all this can be achieved in a way that is realistic and sustainable is the purpose of our National Schools Spiritual Wellbeing Project.
Right now, one of our next steps is working with a group of teachers, exploring how they can reasonably weave self-managed spiritual care into their daily work lives. There are many possibilities that could be developed. It is worth giving a couple of examples.
One suggestion, proposed by a head, is that when they walk around their school and grounds, checking that all is well, they could walk calmly, noticing what touches their hearts.
Another suggestion, from the teachers, is that in those situations that require kindness, they can somatically notice the care demonstrated in their body language.
These kinds of mindful awareness, along with other spiritual wellbeing practices that are well tried and tested, can be extraordinarily effective at reducing stress and sustainably boosting physical and psychological health.
All this – and more – is to be explored and developed. Our ambition is high – that all children in school are supported and happy. This can only happen in schools where the staff and their leadership also feel supported and happy.
* Times Educational Supplement, 23 January 2026 – https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/almost-half-school-leaders-needed-mental-health-support-last-year/