What is The OS
What is The OS?
The Other Subject (The OS) is a wellbeing programme that empowers school pupils and staff to be their own coach and create happier, healthier and more productive lives. We call it ‘The Other Subject’ because we believe that the subject matter of our programme is as important as any other subject on the curriculum.
The OS mission
The OS mission is simple: We want to help schools embed a coaching culture so that they can boost performance, mental health and wellbeing in their communities. We also do this in a way that is affordable for all schools and that does not over-burden staff who are already stretched in terms of workload.
Why we created The OS
The OS was created by the OS Team in response to the mental health crisis impacting children and young people. We feel passionately that early intervention is key. Schools need to do more to prevent, intercept and support performance, mental health and wellbeing issues early on before they develop further. To read more about this crisis and the current challenges facing schools, click here: Current mental health crisis impacting children and young people.
How The OS works
At the heart of The OS programme is an 8-week PSHE course for every year of school, from Reception through to Year 13. This course is delivered by school staff who are trained by the OS Team as ‘OS Coaches’. Each week of the course is a different lesson based on the following key areas of maturation and development:
Week 1: Focus and awareness
Week 2: Relationship with yourself
Week 3: Relationships with others
Week 4: Communication
Week 5: Resilience
Week 6: Future Planning
Week 7: Accomplishment
Week 8: Endings
In total there are 100 lessons in The OS programme, 50 dedicated to Primary Schools and 50 dedicated to Secondary Schools.
All lessons in the course are age-appropriate, gender-neutral and have universal appeal.
Coaching is also an integral part of every lesson. There are many definitions of coaching, but in The OS, it is a set of evidence-based tools and techniques that help individuals get from where they are now to where they want to be in life. This includes all areas of life and not just academic attainment.
In delivering the lessons, OS Coaches use coaching techniques to foster and facilitate learning, growth, development and change. OS Coaches also encourage and empower pupils to hop into the driver’s seat and become their own coach.
Even though there is an enormous benefit in doing The OS year group course year after year to graduate learning and development, all the lessons are stand-alone. This means that pupils don’t have to do an earlier lesson/course to derive a benefit from any given lesson/course.
All pupils who successfully complete the course get a formal certificate of completion, recognising their achievement in the key areas of maturation and development covered by the course.
The OS embeds a coaching culture
The OS programme helps embed coaching culture systemically into your school. There are two levels of OS Coaches. Fully qualified OS Coaches are staff who complete the full 2-day training and basic OS Coaches are staff who only complete the half-day training. Both levels can deliver The OS course, but fully qualified OS Coaches can also use tools, exercises and activities from the lessons to:
- Coach pupils 1:1 in short 10-20 minute sessions on basic performance and wellbeing issues.
- Set up a basic coaching service that supplements existing counselling services.
- Coach each other, school staff and themselves.
- Deliver stand-alone workshops, assemblies and/or talks for pupils, parents or staff.
How we track The OS
At the end of each lesson, course or coaching session OS Coaches collect feedback from the pupils. They also collect wellbeing scores before and after doing the course or a batch of coaching sessions to track the impact of the course or sessions on a pupil’s overall wellbeing. This allows the OS Team and school management teams to have a tangible measurement of how much the programme is helping pupils. This tracking and feedback loop is also vital for The OS to continually improve and evolve.
