Lucy Borthwick is the Wellbeing Lead at Steyning Grammar school. Since the doors to the Wellbeing Hub opened in January 2022, Lucy has worked full time in the Hub to enrich the lives of 16-18 year old young people.
The Hub contains brand new gym equipment and a welcoming, cosy mindfulness space for the students to use five days a week. The first of its kind, our Wellbeing Hub was created as part of the three-year grant we provide to schools. Since joining the team, Lucy has worked with the staff and pupils at Steyning to implement strategies to improve students’ mental health, giving them the tools they need to thrive.
Hi Lucy! Could you tell us a little bit about how you became a Wellbeing Lead?
My background was actually dance – it’s something I’ve always had a passion for, and I’m a qualified dance teacher with a BA(Hons) in Dance. I’ve always had a nurturing nature even as a child, and have always been passionate about caring for others.
After university, I started working at a high school as a cover teacher, and that was my lightbulb moment. I loved (and still do!) working with students and building positive relationships. It taught me that you have to be adaptable to any situation as no two days are ever the same.
I moved on to become a PE technician, supporting the PE department with a range of internal and external jobs. This led to an involvement with Youth Sports Trust, and running interventions to do with health and wellbeing for younger students. That’s where I became passionate, helping students with their mental health and wellbeing beyond the lesson plan.
My next move was into a therapeutic children’s home, where I learnt how therapeutic approaches and routines could be put in place to help children and young people cope with challenges. That background has stood me in really good stead for my role as the Wellbeing Lead today.
What attracted you to the role at the Wellbeing Hub?
It’s unusual to see support being offered to young people at sixth form age so the job caught my eye from the start. When I applied and found out more about the plans for the Wellbeing Hub, I couldn’t believe it – it was so different to anything else and offered the sixth form students such an amazing set up that I couldn’t wait to be a part of it.
Prior to starting at Steyning, I had always worked with younger children (key stage three and four), where school is much more structured. It was refreshing to join the Wellbeing Hub and work with an older age group. These young adults can be trusted to come and go as they please, and it’s wonderful that they will proactively come to me to ask questions or seek our support.
What does a typical week look like in the Wellbeing Hub?
There’s no such thing as a typical week here! It’s part of the reason I love my job – every day is different and you never know what might come up. But I am in the process of creating a timetable of events and activities and seeing what works best for the students.
Every day there are opportunities for one-to-one support, and during lunchtimes I run enrichment wellbeing activities advertised through the school’s email system and on boards around the school. We’ve just had Mental Health Awareness Week, so in recognition, I set up a mindfulness activity where the students came in to paint pebbles. It sounds so simple but the students loved it – it’s a great way for them to forget about the stresses of exams or home life by sitting down and doing something creative and relaxing. It’s also been a brilliant way of encouraging more students to come in and see the Hub, some couldn’t believe it when they realised what’s on offer.
I also run a weekly “coffee, cake and catch up” session which is really popular – and a great way of encouraging students to come in and open up a conversation in a much more relaxed way. We also provide mindfulness colouring, an activity station with lots of different resources, and the gym. The students love having the gym open to them to come and go as they please – and they also have it timetabled every fortnight, which we call “gym enrichment”. The students can come and use the gym or the mindfulness resources as they choose.
Every Friday a wellbeing film and catch up slot. For example, we’ve watched the Wayne Rooney documentary about mental health, the Professor Green documentary about suicide, and the Jessie from Little Mix documentary on bullying. The students love coming in to watch these, and it creates a natural opportunity to talk about issues afterwards.
We also change the ‘zoning’ of the hub regularly. Sometimes I have music playing, and other times I switch the lights off and create a darker, quiet space for the students to feel calm and relaxed.
How have the students reacted to the Wellbeing Hub?
Initially, there was some reluctance for the students to come inside the Hub as they weren’t sure what to expect. And of course, when they did come inside, everything was so brand new that it was like a show home, and they didn’t want to touch anything. But now that we’re more established, more and more students are coming in every day and respect has been built up within the space.
The hub isn’t just about mental health support – it’s about wellbeing as a whole. So we might talk about healthy eating, exam preparation or fitness and exercise. Often the conversation will start around something academic – like homework or exams, but when you start to unpick what the student is saying, you might find other underlying causes that are just manifesting as academic problems. Trying to work out what the real issues are, and then signposting students to the right support, is exactly what we’re here for.
The students really enjoy just coming to the Hub to revise or to chat with me about what happened at the weekend. Sometimes they might pop in if they’ve had a stressful lesson, or even if they’ve done really well in a lesson and want to tell me about it. The students see the Hub as a real sanctuary and a unique space that’s just for them as it is just for KS5 sixth form students.
The students have free rein here, but it’s also a controlled space. It’s the place they know they can come to when they feel out of control in another aspect of their lives. It’s a wonderful resource and I feel truly grateful to be part of it.
