Pupil mental health: anxiety

This session is part of a set of staff resources on pupil mental health. We recommend you start with our session on understanding pupil mental health and wellbeing. The other specific issues we have training sessions/resources on include:

• Depression
• Self harm
• Suicidal ideation
• Eating disorders: staff factsheet

Learning objectives

In this session, staff will learn:

• What anxiety is and when it becomes a concern
• How to spot potential signs of problematic anxiety
• How to support pupils with anxiety
• How to respond in the moment if a pupil has a panic attack

What's in this training session?

This training session includes:

• A ready-to-deliver PowerPoint presentation that you can adapt to suit your school
• Step-by-step facilitator notes
• Activities to help staff put what they're learning into practice and encourage group discussion
• Voiceover – to explain what anxiety is
• Answers to common questions, to help you prepare for questions your staff may have 

1. Download the PowerPoint presentation, facilitator notes, group activities, common questions and audio transcript 
2. Decide whether your staff need in-depth training, or more of an overview
• If you want to cover this topic in depth, use all the slides and activities. The session should last 1 hour if you do this
• If you want to give staff more of an overview, miss out the activities. The session will last 30 minutes if you do this
3. Work through the facilitator notes. They tell you everything you need to know to prepare and deliver the PowerPoint presentation effectively, including what slides to use or delete to run this session in 1 hour or 30 minutes. You’ll need these to hand when presenting