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By weaving social and emotional learning into its curriculum, Hong Kong International School is helping its students develop crucial life skills that go beyond academics.
or better or worse, memories of middle school last forever.
“It’s a time when there’s tremendous growth” says Laura Cowan, a Grade 6 counsellor and head of the middle school student support team at Hong Kong International School (HKIS), a fortress of education overlooking Tai Tam
Bay. Scientists believe it is partly this growth – intellectual, physical, hormonal and social – that makes adolescence so memorable, as teenage brains mature and form an identity. However, such neurological developments can also prove confronting, even disruptive, which is why Cowan advocates for social and emotional learning (SEL) to be embedded into the curriculum from an early age, in much the same way that physical education has been for decades.
“Social-emotional learning comes under the construct of mental health and well-being,” she says. “It’s about being able to self-regulate, to be self-aware, to have the tools to navigate challenging situations, to be able to build relationships and connections, to have a sense of belonging.
“It’s not that we’re trying to make everybody happy all the time – that’s a ridiculous concept, we know these things will ebb and flow – but someone who is mentally well and healthy will be able to navigate those patterns or recognise when things are too much to handle on their own and ask for help.”
At HKIS, Cowan has been fortunate to be at a school where SEL is embedded from reception 1 all the way up to grade 12. “I’ve worked in schools where I’m triaged all the time, just reacting,” Cowan says. “Here, we’re very much on the proactive axis, and we’re able to do that because we’re so well resourced with counsellors and learning specialists.”
The Middle School, which serves pupils aged 11 to 14 in Grade 6 through 8, has three counsellors, three learning support teachers, a nurse and a secretary. It also has a Student Service Centre, a colourful, comfortable set of spaces that invite interaction and relaxation, complete with games, essential oils and a relaxation room. “This is a place to connect and a place to belong,” says Cowan. “And it’s tech-free. They come here to socialise.”
The centre has an open-door policy, because, as Cowan explains, “We want to normalise mental health […] What we’re doing is progressive, but it shouldn’t be.”
Cowan’s commitment to promoting mental health and well-being in school stems from her own childhood, which she describes as “traumatic”. Without any support structures in place, she found a saviour in sport, playing field hockey for Scotland. Her athletic career brought her to Hong Kong, where she played rugby and was a PE teacher at HKIS before leaving to study for a master’s in international counselling, eventually returning to the city as a counsellor.
“I needed time to make sure I was in the right frame of mind to be able to help others,” she says of her decision to pivot from physical to mental health, although the two are arguably interwoven.
Having rejoined HKIS as a counsellor in 2016, Cowan has worked hard with the team to foster a school-wide awareness of mental health and well-being. “Counselling is just one piece of SEL,” she says. “The biggest part actually lies with the day-to-day and the teachers in the classroom.”
Additionally, the counselling team offers parent education, running parenting courses and hosting coffee mornings and presentations throughout the academic year. They are also responsible for trauma crisis (which is Cowan’s speciality –
“no surprises,” she says) and child protection, which is practised according to Hong Kong and international law.
To help identify a pupil’s potential stress points, Cowan and her colleagues send out a survey, “asking kids about their well-being” on a biweekly basis to all students from Grade 3 through Grade 12. They are asked to rate how they feel in various aspects of their life, such as stress, sleep and their relationship with their family, and a particularly low value will catch a counsellor’s attention. “We want them to advocate for themselves, but if a kid scores a zero, one or two, we contact them, even if they don’t request to meet with us.”
Cowan calls it an “awesome data tool” that gives her current and longitudinal information on a child’s psychological well-being and their academic progress, and allows her to consider the relationship between the two.
Of course, external factors affect mental health, too, and the past two years of protests followed by a pandemic that forced learning online have proved particularly difficult. According to Cowan, the pressures have manifested in “exacerbating any underlying challenges that people had”, although she is adamant that “it’s a healthy response to feel overwhelmed, to feel helpless, to feel confused”.
The return to in-person learning has not been without its challenges, with some struggling to re-establish relationships and respect social constructs. Still, Cowan is thankful to be back, “because so much does happen in the corridor, during break time”, where so many of those middle school memories – good, bad, or transformative – are made.