What I learned from our founding school - and how it's shaping what we do next

The last few weeks of term are always a good time to pause, take stock, and ask a few uncomfortable but useful questions.

What is actually working? What are schools still finding hard?

And if we really want to build the best wellbeing system in the world for education, what do we need to improve next?

That was the thinking behind a recent action research project at Valley Park, our founding school.

Valley Park was the first school to subscribe to youHQ. It has been part of our story from the very beginning, and over the years it has helped shape more of the product than most people probably realise. Some of our best ideas, sharpest improvements, and most necessary reality checks have come from listening carefully to schools like Valley Park.

Which is helpful, because schools are generally much better than tech companies at spotting when something sounds good in theory but falls apart by Tuesday morning form time.

That is exactly why I wanted to go in, observe in person, speak to staff and students, and understand not just how the platform is being used, but what it really takes to embed wellbeing in a way that is practical, repeatable, and sustainable.

Building features matters. But if schools do not have the confidence, routines, tools, and processes to make those features part of everyday life, then even the best platform will only ever get so far.

The question I most wanted to answer

More than anything else, I wanted to understand this:

What helps a school embed wellbeing well, and what gets in the way?

We know youHQ works best when students come back to it regularly. Ideally, they check in weekly, reflect often, and see it as part of school life rather than a one-off activity.

But schools are busy places. Form time is crowded. PSHE carries a lot. Staff are juggling routines, behaviour, pastoral care, notices, and whatever fresh chaos the week has produced.

So the challenge is not convincing school leaders that wellbeing matters. The challenge is how we can help them make wellbeing practice work in a busy real world school.

What I saw in school

One of the most useful parts of the visit was seeing the difference between two tutor-time experiences.

In the first, students logged in, but youHQ was more of an opening prompt before the session moved on. That is not a criticism. It is just school life. Time is tight and tutors have a lot to hold.

In the second, the whole thing felt different. The tutor brought energy, confidence, and clarity. She moved around the room, spoke to students about their goals, and made the moment feel active and purposeful.

Same platform. Very different experience.

That reinforced something important for me: a platform can create the opportunity, but staff bring it to life.

If we want wellbeing to be embedded consistently, we cannot assume every adult in the room will instinctively know how to frame a check-in, lead a reflection, or make the moment land. That is not a platform problem alone. It is an implementation challenge.

And that means we need to build not just better features, but better support around them.

The barriers became clearer

The visit also made the barriers easier to see.

Some are structural:

• form time is busy

• personal development and PSHE time is full already

• even in a 1:1 device school, regular use does not happen by magic

Some are about implementation:

• staff need clearer prompts and scripts

• onboarding cannot be a one-off event

• schools need simple ways to keep staff up to date as the platform evolves

• staff need visibility of engagement if they are going to follow up well

And some are about the student experience itself:

• students want something that feels more personal and relevant

• they want content that is easier to engage with and return to

• they compare digital experiences with everything else they use, not just other school tools

None of that felt discouraging. If anything, it was clarifying.

The schools we work with care deeply about wellbeing. The issue is not commitment. The issue is helping schools turn that commitment into habits and routines that can survive the pace of everyday school life.

What the students taught us

The student voice session was one of the most valuable parts of the whole project.

The students were thoughtful, honest, and refreshingly direct, which is usually where the best learning is.

They wanted the experience to feel more personal, more engaging, and more in tune with how young people actually use digital tools. They talked about:

• suggested resources that feel relevant to them

• clearer and more expressive check-ins

• less heavy text and more visual content

• more reasons to come back regularly

• better wording around emotions and mood

• more variety in tone, format, and content

They also had practical ideas for schools and staff:

• short weekly tutor prompts or videos

• better scripts for introducing youHQ

• clearer visibility of who has logged in

• more support for older students, including revision-related content

That is exactly why our schools matter so much. They help us improve the product, yes. But they also help us understand the conditions that make the product useful.

That is a much bigger insight.

How this shapes what we build next

From the start, youHQ has been shaped by schools.

Not in a vague “we listen to users” sort of way that every company says. In a real way. Features, content, workflows, and support ideas have all come from what schools have told us they need.

This project reminded me that if we want to build the best wellbeing system in education, we have to think beyond the platform itself.

The product is not just the software.

It is the platform, the staff onboarding, the re-onboarding, the prompts, the visibility, the routines, the processes, and the content that help wellbeing become part of normal school life.

So over the next 12 months, this learning will shape how we improve youHQ.

That means:

• making the student experience feel more personal and engaging

• improving how staff are onboarded and supported

• creating better prompts and tools for regular use

• helping schools build repeatable routines, not just isolated moments

• making it easier for staff to see engagement and respond well

Because if students only use a wellbeing platform when they are told to, that tells us one thing.

If they choose to come back to it inside and outside of school, that tells us something far more important.

End of year reflection

What I liked most about this project was that it gave us an honest picture of our progress to this point.

youHQ is now clearly effective at helping schools highlight those students who are struggling and giving them them tools to overcome obstacles, but we still have lots of work to do.

We can see more clearly now where the barriers still are. That is a good place to be, even if it is not always the most comfortable one.

The goal is to keep learning, keep improving, and keep building a system that genuinely helps schools make wellbeing practical, consistent, and sustainable so they can help students feel heard.