Children experience many different emotions and some of them are accompanied by guilt or shame.If, for example, a teenager falls in love with his best friend’s girlfriend, he may feel ashamed or guilty. By telling him that no matter what he feels we are there for him, he will feel secure enough to talk about those emotions, which in turn will help him to process them effectively, helping his overall mental health.

So what can we do about it? Ditching the technology entirely is not an option, because there is no other way to receive the weekly comms, upload your data, complete a risk assessment, log a behaviour incident…  We can however begin to take some control over how the tech impinges on our day.

All too often, academic demands on pupils provoke a sense of rivalry, rather than teaching them how to enjoy life and cultivate positive emotions. Yet educational performance does not need to come at the cost of children’s happiness and well-being. To see how schools can teach pupils to be happy, consider the education systems of some of the happiest countries in the world. For instance, all five of the Nordic countries – Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland – appear in the top ten happiest countries, according to the World Happiness Report.

“It’s fantastic to celebrate the achievement of teachers and kids who have been involved with Nike and Discovery Education’s Active Kids Do Better programme this year. We hope attending the Müller Anniversary Games gives the children even more inspiration to keep up the great work and get more active.”

Whatever your role in a school, know this: you do have the power to combat stress by making better food choices, moving more throughout the day, and dedicating time in your day to address your inner well-being through mindfulness meditation. Just like you can be a part of the solution for climate change, you can be part of the solution in improving your health and well-being.

Approximately one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. In England, one in six people over the age of 16 report experiencing a common mental health problem (such as anxiety and depression) in any given week. Nearly half of adults self-identify as having a mental health problem with only two thirds of these having been diagnosed by a professional. There is evidence that how people are coping with mental health problems is getting worse, as demonstrated by the increasing number of people who self-harm and/or have suicidal thoughts. It has been established that 50% of mental illness in adult life (excluding dementia) starts before age 15 and 75% by age 18.

It is important, I found, to ensure you do unwind and relax in holidays so that you begin each new half term or new term refreshed and rested. But this isn’t just about well-being, I see. It’s about remembering what brought you into the profession originally and ensuring that you still have that drive and energy to do what needs to be done.

First of all, we need a fundamental change in schools. One that puts teacher wellbeing as high as student wellbeing. One that means school leadership teams implement things based on evidence and research rather than on the whim of what “Ofsted wants to see”. The one thing we certainly do not need though are compulsory wellbeing sessions. Teachers much prefer that time to work on the tasks at hand.

We need to eradicate the stigma that still surrounds mental illness. It’s ok not to be ok. It’s ok to struggle and it’s ok to ask for help. Teachers need to be able to deal with mental ill healthamongst their students. They need to be more like Mr Donoghue; students need to be treated as human-beings above all else.

So, when I return in September, my door will remain open and I will remain compassionate to the daily stresses and strains of teaching in the UK in 2018, as well as to the numerous challenges which simply bringing human brings to my colleagues.