Ahead of our Mental Wellbeing in HE Conference 2026, Dr Elliott Spaeth, Advance HE Senior Consultant in Inclusive Education reflects on his recent podcast with Dr Claire Killingback (University of Hull) and Rosie Jones (Teesside University) in which they discuss compassionate pedagogy
I’m not generally one for formalities: I nearly forgot to introduce myself at the start of our recent podcast on compassionate pedagogy, which feels entirely in character and not in conflict with the ability to do a good job. For me, meaningful connection is more important that sticking firmly to a predetermined set of rules.
That conversation was a true joy, because it was a space where it not only felt safe to be myself, but where that felt welcomed and celebrated. We weren’t looking for neat fixes or easy answers. Instead, we were sitting in the messy complexity, thinking about how we could approach things with our students in mind.
Claire’s arrival at compassionate pedagogy – through a research module where her students’ wellbeing scores were, in her words, “in their boots” – is a poignant example of what compassion means in practice: noticing distress and taking action to alleviate that distress.
Her scoping review of the literature identified four dimensions: recognising distress; actively responding to it (and crucially, anticipating it – knowing where the pressure points in your modules are before students hit them); supporting broader flourishing rather than just academic performance; and seeing students as whole people, not just minds to be filled with content. This aligns with a truly student-centred approach, not just one based on our mental picture of who a student should be and how they should behave.
Rosie drew on her experience at Teesside, where 87% of students meet widening participation criteria. For her, success looks different depending on who’s in the room. A disabled student who delivers a presentation at graduation after years of struggling – that’s a transformational outcome, regardless of the grade attached to it.
For me, compassion becomes most visible to me in its absence: when a policy is followed to the letter in a way that causes harm, and the harm is justified by the fact that it’s policy. The gap between what a process was designed to do and what it actually does to a particular person is where so much damage quietly accumulates, and where senior leadership can make a real difference.
Compassion in practice
When I teach about compassionate pedagogies, I’m always acutely aware that Higher Education already runs on the goodwill of hugely compassionate, generous staff. I want to support those people, not suggest that they feel guilty, do even more, or extend their role to one of a counsellor.
Claire talks about “porous boundaries”, which have enough flexibility to keep our humanity while protecting our own wellbeing too. These boundaries are crucial to protect staff wellbeing and prevent burnout. Unfortunately, it can often seem like institutions habitually rely on staff eroding their own boundaries in the name of student wellbeing, rather than creating structures and cultures that enable both to thrive symbiotically.
When it comes to involvement of relevant student support services, Rosie made the point that over-referral is just as problematic as under-referral. If every student who seems distressed gets immediately escalated to specialist services, we’ve both overwhelmed those services and implicitly told students that their ordinary human struggles are too much for the people teaching them. Even worse, this kind of escalation is often used as an excuse to avoid taking immediate, supportive action, allowing harm to continue to be caused in the interim. Sometimes the most compassionate response is simply: thank you for telling me – let me have a think about what we can do.
That phrase is one I’d give to every student-facing member of staff if I could. It’s okay that we don’t know the answer straight away, but it’s vital that we are willing to sit with that uncertainty and figure it out, even if it’s messy. That is what true compassion looks like in practice.
Making it structural
One thing that troubles me is how often compassion is treated as a responsibility of individual staff members, rather than something institutions can build into their systems. Policies and processes matter enormously. They reflect the priorities and values of senior leadership, and can either be a barrier or enabler to a culture where compassion is centred.
Teesside has been doing interesting work here: rewriting a “fitness to study” policy into a “support to study” process, co-authored with students; and revisiting how debt recovery communications are written and delivered. These aren’t superficial changes. They’re about considering, at every stage: how does this land for a student in a difficult moment?
We don’t have all the answers. But perhaps that’s the point. If we can sit with the uncertainty and the discomfort, and build space for those within how we teach, how we write policies, and how we talk to colleagues about struggling students, the more visible it becomes as a genuine institutional value rather than an aspiration.
It was a joy to hear about how Claire and Rosie have been taking action to support student wellbeing. I can’t wait to hear from other people across the sector at our mental wellbeing conference. I hope to see you there – do come and say hi.
