New year, new lens: what if we stopped arriving after the fire?
New Year has a funny split personality.
On one hand it’s forward-facing: fresh diaries, clean slates, this time I’ll…
On the other it’s reflective: what worked, what didn’t, what we wish we’d done differently.
In schools, and in children’s mental health more broadly, we often do the reflective bit after something has already gone wrong. A child’s anxiety is now interfering with school. A child’s mood has dropped. Behaviour has escalated. Attendance is wobbling. A family is in crisis. A teacher is at the end of their tether.
And then we respond. We refer, we support, we treat. That work matters. It’s compassionate, necessary, and often life-changing. But it’s worth saying plainly: a system built mainly around reacting will always feel overwhelmed.
So here’s the New Year twist I want to offer schools – and those with the power to shape what schools prioritise:
What if we moved further upstream?
If we step back, we can see that difficulties rarely appear out of nowhere. They tend to unfold over time.
Children experience stress – pressure, uncertainty, conflict, change. They cope as best they can with the skills, understanding and support available to them. If that stress continues, those coping strategies can harden into patterns – ways of managing that once helped but may start to carry costs. Over time, patterns can become problems: persistent anxiety, low mood, behavioural difficulties, withdrawal, school avoidance. Eventually, those problems may reach the point of diagnosis or crisis, when urgent intervention becomes unavoidable.
Most of our effort and investment gathers around the final stages of that sequence. We work hard – and rightly so – at the “problems” end of the chain. But prevention asks a different question: What can we build early, routinely, and universally, so fewer children ever reach the sharp end? Not because life can be made risk-free (it can’t), but because skills, relationships, environments and habits can be strengthened long before a child is drowning.
Prevention doesn’t mean “no one will struggle”
Let’s be clear. Prevention isn’t the promise that nobody will feel anxious, low, angry, lonely, self-critical, or overwhelmed. Prevention is the commitment to:
- building psychological skills before they’re urgently needed
- shaping school cultures that reduce unnecessary threat and shame
- strengthening protective factors such as connection, belonging, emotional literacy, self-regulation and compassion
- creating systems where children are noticed earlier and supported sooner
It’s the difference between teaching children what smoke smells like – and how to respond – versus waiting until the whole kitchen is ablaze.
This isn’t a fluffy idea. There is a substantial body of research suggesting that well-designed, school-based approaches can support children’s mental health and wellbeing, reduce anxiety and emotional distress, and create learning environments that are more supportive and effective when implemented well.
Positive psychology and positive education help with this
Positive psychology is the scientific study of what helps individuals and communities function well. It is not about forced happiness or telling children to “be positive”. In schools, it focuses on deliberately building skills such as emotional literacy, coping and self-regulation, kindness and compassion, strengths-use, positive relationships, and a sense of meaning and belonging.
Research in this field, including work associated with Martin Seligman and others, suggests that when positive psychology principles are thoughtfully embedded in schools, they can help reduce anxiety and emotional distress, support wellbeing, and strengthen the protective factors that help children cope and flourish. These approaches are not a replacement for mental health support — but they can reduce pressure on it by helping fewer children reach crisis point in the first place.
This is the work I do with schools. I deliver British Psychological Society approved whole-school training, supporting schools to move beyond firefighting and towards preventative, evidence-based approaches to wellbeing that are embedded into everyday school life – for staff as well as pupils.
You can find more about that work here.
Here’s the uncomfortable bit
Prevention requires people with power to take a longer view.
Because upstream work:
- doesn’t always produce headline-friendly “quick wins”
- often needs training, time and thoughtful implementation
- requires consistency (not a one-off inset day)
- benefits from a whole-school approach, not a bolt-on
That’s a direct challenge to short-term thinking.
So, as the year turns, here’s the invitation:
If you’re a school leader, governor, trust executive or policymaker, consider making a New Year commitment that isn’t about patching holes faster. Make it about there being fewer holes in the first place.
Commit to an upstream approach that asks:
- What are we teaching children before they struggle?
- How are we reducing unnecessary threat and shame in our systems?
- Are staff supported to model regulation, compassion and realistic optimism — not just demand it from children?
- Are we investing in prevention with the same seriousness we invest in attainment?
Because if we collectively shift even a little toward prevention – skills, culture, compassion, belonging, meaning – the New Year won’t just be happier in a vague, aspirational way.
It will be healthier, in real and lasting ways, for a great many children. And that, frankly, is a resolution worth making.
