The Optimus blog

The blog that inspires leaders in the UK education sector

The Optimus blog

The blog that inspires leaders in the UK education sector

Pupil safety and pastoral care

Aldaine Wynter

Raising the voice of LGBTQ+ youth

LGBTQ+ History Month is an ideal time to start an LGBTQ+ student voice group. Aldaine Wynter explains some first steps. Every February is LGBTQ+ History Month and this year’s theme, 'The Arc is Long', is inspired by Martin Luther King’s quote: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends...
Read more...
Liz Worthen

The best that we can be: why behaviour management starts with self-care

Liz Worthen speaks to Adele Bates about what inspired her book, “Miss, I don’t give a sh*t” , and what she’s learned in the process of becoming an author. Regular blogger Adele Bates has published her first book, “Miss, I don’t give a sh*t”: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools , in which...
Read more...
Lucy Marcovitch

Five ways to teach RSHE with confidence

Guest blogger Lucy Marcovitch, writer, educator and series editor Discovery Education’s Health and Relationships programme shares her top five strategies for building confidence in teaching relationships, sex and health education. No matter how good a school’s RSHE provision might be, there is...
Read more...
Liz Worthen

What can we do about sexual harassment in schools?

Liz Worthen shares her key takeaways from the Delivering Statutory RSE conference and signposts useful resources. Not surprisingly, one of the main topics for discussion on the part of both speakers and delegates at the Delivering Statutory RSE conference was sexual harassment. Of course, child-on-...
Read more...
Adele Bates

How do you deal with behaviour?

Been told you shouldn’t smile until Christmas? Adele Bates explores how you can work out how to do behaviour your own way. When talking about behaviour there is often an underlining assumption that there is one way that really works. It’s the booming voice of discipline creating compliance, where...
Read more...
Kirsty Ruthven

School uniform: The gender debate

Kirsty Ruthven, Head of Education at the charity Lifting Limits, casts an eye over the school uniform debate through a gender-equality lens. We need school uniform to show our identity as a school. It’s important that we all feel part of a group (Year 5 pupil). I think we should wear our own...
Read more...
Adele Bates

How are we all behaving?

Are you seeing unusual behaviour patterns emerging post lockdown? Adele Bates reflects on what she and other practitioners are witnessing, possible causes and solutions. I’ve started and re-written this blog post a couple of times because it seems that every time I think I have found a pattern in...
Read more...
Nicola Harvey

Strategies to support anxiety

Nicola Harvey shares four practical strategies to use in supporting children or young people who are experiencing anxiety. Anxiety is a normal emotion and we all experience it from time to time. It only becomes a problem when anxiety persistently gets in the way of a child or young person living...
Read more...
Kelly Hannaghan

Supervision for mental health leads: why and how?

Kelly Hannaghan makes the case for pastoral staff supervision for mental health and wellbeing leads, as a means to process the increasing pressures they are carrying. It’s perplexing that wellbeing practitioners such as psychologists and social workers have regular supervision that is mandatory,...
Read more...
Adele Bates

Pandemic permissions: let’s keep talking about mental health and wellbeing

‘Actually, I’m not that great.’ What would change if we put conversations about mental health and wellbeing at the forefront of our work in schools? Around Christmas I got a text from someone I vaguely know: ‘sorry, I’m not able to work on that right now, I’m having trouble with my mental health’...
Read more...