Place2Be at Moray House

Moray House and Place2Be have partnered up to support our student teachers to create mentally healthy classrooms.

What are Place2Be and Place2Think?

All student teachers at Moray House can access mental health expertise through our partnership with Place2Be, a leading children’s mental health charity. This is provided by a clinician from Place2Be, who is embedded in our School to support the development of knowledge, understanding and skills that can be applied in the classroom to identify and support child and adolescent mental health, wellbeing, and resilience.

Find out more about Place2Be's wider work in Scotland

Place2Think

All student teachers at Moray House can engage regularly with Place2Think. These are one-to-one and group sessions with our embedded Place2Be clinician - a unique therapeutic space, where they can reflect on their practice, their pupils' mental health and wellbeing, as well as their own wellbeing. This allows students to build their skills as a teacher and build their own emotional resilience, preparing them for a career in the classroom.

Place2Be

In addition to Place2Think, all students can attend a range of Place2Be sessions (lectures and seminars) where they can gain a stronger theoretical and practical understanding of child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing, and how they can support it in their classrooms, and as part of a wider 'whole school' approach. 

How do Moray House students benefit from the partnership?

Through engagement with Place2Be our students have an increased understanding of child and adolescent mental health in the classroom. The partnership also allows student teachers to develop a greater sense of agency, and a way to understand the impact of their new profession on their own sense of identity. They can truly reflect on how their own emotions or experiences may impact a given situation, and learn how to best support children and young people, and themselves.

Ultimately, this leads to teachers who have greater emotional regulation, better self-awareness and increased resilience. They will be able to create classrooms in which children feel safe, emotionally secure, and understood by their teacher.

Place2Think provided me with the opportunity as a student teacher to take a step back, speak about my experiences and receive guidance from a mental health clinician on how to support my learners but also how to look after myself.

Place2Think has offered me a safe space to process, gaining the skills to be able to understand ‘me’ and therefore children, and to thrive rather than survive in this profession. I think every teacher should be able to access a space like this.

Place2Be Mental Health Champions Foundation Programme

Student teachers with a particular interest in this area will also be able to engage with a bespoke online student teacher version of Place2Be’s Mental Health Champions Foundation Programme; this 5 hour online mental health training programme is designed to foster positive wellbeing in schools and communities.

Initial Teacher Education at Moray House

Place2Be