Young people in today’s world can have a great deal of stresses to navigate and overcome. Wider global issues combine with a student’s social, emotional and domestic situations to create barriers to learning or more significant issues that need to be addressed. The importance of checking in with students is enormous.

18% of children aged 7-16 years old had a probable mental disorder in 2022.

Both school and adolescence are extremely stressful in their own rights. An estimated 33.3% of adolescents will experience an anxiety disorder, which is oftentimes be fuelled by school pressures such as social or academic expectations. Homework, exams, bullying, friendship problems and how they are perceived by others are just some of the pressures that students face.

Stresses and mental health problems are widespread in schools, but many students may be facing sources of anxiety outside of school hours for example, in their home lives.

1 in 5 children have lived with an adult perpetrating domestic abuse. For many, school is a safe place to be and perhaps preferable to being at home. Those who feel unsafe or unhappy in their lives outside of school need to be identified and supported.

The importance of checking in with students is massive. Regardless of the scale of a student’s issue, having an opportunity to disclose negative feelings and be given the appropriate guidance has a transformative impact on a child. There are improvements to:

It has never been so important to check in with students for the sake of their academic and, most importantly, their general welfare. These interactions with a student are vital.

How ECINS Can Help

ECINS has designed its systems with the importance of checking in with students in mind. By providing wraparound support, ECINS offers students an outlet to check in with trusted staff members by reporting their current situation.

Moreover, ECINS also makes the process of checking in with students more efficient for staff members. The streamlined functions allow school staff to reach out with greater ease and improve data capture; check-ins are more productive, and follow-up procedures are made clear. Reducing the administrative strain on staff benefits everyone.

Universal Screener

This screening function enables staff to send our assessments to individuals, distribution groups, cohorts or a personalised set of students. Forms are pre-loaded or made from scratch to maximise the usefulness of the responses. The responses are converted into scores and reports are made; the data allows staff to create specific reports, for example all answers to question five are analysed.

ECINS’ universal screener could collect data from the beginning, middle and end of the year – for example – and run a report to see how grades improved and identify areas that need work. Whilst these reports are used for entire cohorts, they also identify which students may need additional support. The universal screening feature makes the important exercise of checking in with students as simple as possible.

Wheel Assessments

Data collected from the universal screening forms are also be visualised using the wheel assessment feature. Wheel assessments visually compare data points so that insights can be drawn. This tool could be used to facilitate checking in with students. For example, a wheel assessment could highlight a particular students decline in academic achievement, social life and emotional status in comparison to last term.

Wheel assessments provide a visual representation of the areas that individuals and cohorts are struggle in. This comparative feature allows staff members to identify where further intervention is needed to benefit everyone.

Student Engagement Module

The SEM is located in MyPortal360, a secure platform that is accessed via web browse or app. ECINS’ Student Engagement Module has a variety of tools to provide wraparound support for students:

Regarding student check-ins, the task-setting feature is utilised by staff members to encourage young people to fill out the forms sent on the universal screening feature. The status of this task e.g., whether it’s overdue, will be visible to students and promotes checking in.

Moreover, the ECINS mood tracker encourages students to document their feelings and fill-out a short entry about their welfare. This method of checking in is confidential (only trusted staff members view the responses) and gives young people the confidence to disclose their situations and seek help.