Launching School Check Ins with Youth Input

iyarn is an easy to use and secure platform for check ins with students, staff and many more groups.

Over the past year, we’ve received some great feedback from schools who’ve rolled out the platform in many different settings. This article looks at the journey of one school’s implementation of iyarn, including the use of a youth advisory committee to shape the check ins. 

Further information about the case study is available on request.

What is iyarn?

iyarn was created to help people connect on a person-to-person level by checking in. iyarn’s check ins are always fast and easily understood, clearly showing what is going well and perhaps not so well.

Each check in can be customised to capture the essential input.In the school environment, these check ins can be created to track learning, health, wellbeing and other important topics in a way that will keep students connected and engaged.

Rolling Our iyarn to Multiple Year Groups

This case study focuses on one school’s experience implementing iyarn across many pastoral care groups. The initiative was lead by an physical education teacher in a Western Australian School, with the support of 16 pastoral care leaders across year 9 and 11 year groups. 

The year groups both saw benefits from the check ins. Students face an ever-widening set of challenges in their learning journeys and regular check ins were seen to be a useful initiative, for this group of students and their teacher.

The check ins encouraged reflection, learning and growth from students, and supported their teacher to develop a stronger connection and understanding of the students. The system for check ins was complementary to the school’s existing approach for student wellbeing.

Securing Engagement from Teachers and the Leadership Team

Several strategies were useful to secure engagement from the leadership team and the wider teacher group. This school group used a workshop to kick off the process. All year group coordinators received additional support prior to this session, as the point persons for the

Involving a Youth Advisory Committee

To get the student engaged, this school used a student advisory committee. This group was useful to co-create a template that would be used with the students, in language that resonated with them. In this case, the student group was based on the year group advisory councils that already existed in the school.

Easily Track Wellbeing

The coordinator of the initiative offered this reflection on the utility of iyarn:

“Since launching iyarn, we have been able to give students a way to easily track their wellbeing and mental health. Our students have embraced this resource and can see the value in understanding their own strengths and areas for improvement that it highlights. As a College dedicated to pastoral care, we are now beginning to see students empowered to improve their overall health as well as having important data that shapes how we can best support our students.“

Implementing iyarn in Your School

Piqued your interest? See another case study about how an individual class-sized group at another school implemented iyarn, and the learnings from that experience. 

We’ve taken on board feedback from each and every one of our early adopters. This feedback has been invaluable as we steadily improve our existing features and add new functionality to the platform.

iyarn has emerged as an incredibly easy to use and secure platform for student check ins. These check ins can play a highly valuable role in supporting the growth and wellbeing of students, particularly at a time when COVID is impacting schools across the world.

If you’d like to talk further or schedule a demo of the platform, contact us for more.