Mairead Ewart on how Barnardo's is working with schools in Renfrewshire to help develop social and emotional skills in pupils
PATHS is a ground-breaking project that enables children to develop fundamental social and emotional learning skills, improving the mental health of primary school pupils.
In Scotland it has been running in 13 Renfrewshire schools since 2013, and is due to be rolled out to a further 14 schools in the local authority from August, with the intention that it will be adopted by all of the primary schools in Renfrewshire. This decision was taken following the evaluation over the last three years of the schools and pupils who have been using the PATHS Programme.
When we began the PATHS Plus project back in 2013 with 24 schools across four regions of the UK, it was hard to envisage how the programme might grow and develop over the next few years. But grow it did! When our funding from the Big Lottery’s Realising Ambition project ended in 2016, we had worked with a total of 126 schools, 23,646 children and 1379 teachers across the whole of the UK.
Children themselves reported improved self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and problem solving skills
Mairead Ewart
In Renfrewshire in 2013, we started PATHS in 10 schools, and had a fantastic commitment and partnership with the council. While there were many challenges over the three years, the commitment of teachers and school leaders ensured the project was a continual high priority and any challenges were met with a can-do approach.
Within Scotland, the PATHS curriculum is seen as a valuable tool to develop social and emotional skills and it fitted in under the health and wellbeing strand of the Curriculum for Excellence, and linked to many other school-wide initiatives such as UNCRC.
In 2015, we had the opportunity to grow the programme, and a further three schools began implementing the programme alongside the original 10 schools. Over the three years, in Renfrewshire alone we reached a total of 3,327 pupils between primary 4 and 7, and a further 2,500 pupils across primaries 1 to 3 also benefitted from programme support.
The impact of the programme was tested using a variety of methods, including pre and post surveys, pupil voice surveys, senior leadership surveys and training evaluations. The pre and post survey results have shown positive improvements in both children's mental health and emotional regulation, while children themselves reported improved self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and problem solving skills.
The success of the programme however is not measured solely by the results, but by the commitment of the whole-school teams who have ensured that PATHS is not just a stand-alone subject, but has become part of the whole-school ethos.
Due to the positive impact of PATHS in the first cohort of Renfrewshire schools, Renfrewshire Council and Barnardo’s will be rolling out PATHS to a further 14 schools from August 2017. We are extremely proud to be able to continue the work in the Renfrewshire area, and look forward to getting started in August.
Mairead Ewart is the Children’s Service Manager for the PATHS Programme UK at Barnardo's
