‘Their best interests at heart’: Exploring influences on student teachers' learning to promote health and wellbeing in the classroom

Louise Campbell, Shirley Gray, Donna Dey, Deborah Holt (Lead / Corresponding author), Rosemary Mulholland

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Abstract

Health and wellbeing has been identified as a requirement for effective teaching and learning in many education systems. In some curricula internationally, supporting health and wellbeing has been articulated as an integral aspect of teachers’ professional skills. This research sought to investigate, via a small-scale qualitative study, what and how two cohorts of student teachers learned about supporting secondary school learners’ health and wellbeing during one academic year, grounding the study in Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory to explore microsystemic, macrosystemic, exosystemic and chronosystemic influences on student teachers’ learning. Findings highlight that the development of positive relationships with pupils became a crucial aspect of engaging with health and wellbeing for participants. Emphasis was placed on the value of learning about teachers’ health and wellbeing practice during placement, though it was recognised that university-based learning offered orientation for these experiences. Prior learning, from life experiences before entering teacher education, was also valued. The findings suggest the relational work associated with teaching should be carefully considered in the planning and development of teacher education curricula. The experiences student teachers have and are offered through their teacher education appear to be crucial to their learning about this aspect of their work as teacher.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages19
JournalTeacher Development
Early online date26 Nov 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 26 Nov 2024

Keywords

  • teacher education
  • health and wellbeing
  • relationships
  • ethics of care

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