Mental Health and Wellbeing
What is Mental Health?
Mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community
Our Aims
Through our PSHRE curriculum and our values we aim to ensure that children
- Feel loved, trusted, understood, valued and safe
- Are interested in life and have opportunities to enjoy themselves
- Are hopeful and optimistic
- Are able to learn from mistakes and have opportunities to succeed
- Accept who they are and recognise what they are good at
- Have a sense of belonging in their school and community
- Are able to cope when something is wrong (resilience) and the ability to solve problems.
Parent Views on Children's Well-being in our school
In March 2020 we arried out a well being questionnaire. 77 questionnaires were returned (representing 57% of our parents). Please see the document below for the results.
We also asked parents to comment on our current approach to well-being. Below is what they said;
What does the school do well to support your child’s wellbeing?
- A nurturing and friendly school that always has a welcoming feel.
- The atmosphere is a positive approach and reflects on my child’s wellbeing.
- Yoga, mindfulness and relaxation sessions regularly.
- Mt daughter is supported in all aspects.
- Provides a safe environment for learning and building confidence.
- My son’s teacher really helps him achieve his targets and encourages him all the way.
- Supports learning.
- Everything. Cannot fault the school in any way.
- Encouraging all talents, practical or academic.
- Promote caring for others and friendship.
- Teaching assistant always being so welcoming.
Everything- we love this school and my son is super happy here. - Nurturing environment to learn in.
- Balanced meals, emotional support with changes to routine, such as Link Club. Excellent support and relationships with staff.
- Gives a safe and caring environment.
- Promotes a healthy lifestyle through regular exercise.
- Supports emotions well.
- Teachers and other staff are very approachable and supportive if there are any issues.
- They are always looked after when not feeling well or if upset about coming into school.
- Activities and exercise after school.
- The staff are amazing at supporting my child.
- Happy and well cared for.
- Treated as individuals and each pupil personally known.
- Helps my son feel confident in his abilities.
- Helps anxious parents and children feel really settled.
- The school is very approachable and willing to advise outside of parent evenings.
- The school provides a safe and caring atmosphere for children.
- Healthy food, good exercise, knowledge of climate change and recycling.
- Supports child in development.
- Friendly staff.
- My daughter is really well supported by all.
- Keep parents up to date on behaviour.
- Good balanced meals and snacks.
- Daily mile.
- P.E and after school clubs.
- Very nurturing and encouraging in all aspects.
- Inclusion of music and singing in the curriculum.
- Wake and shake sessions.
- Regular updates (PING).
- Can talk to teacher if need to.
- We are very happy with the schools approach.
- Teaching the children the benefits of exercise and good nutrition.
- Exercise and life skills.
- Encouraging friendships.
- Speaking openly about feelings.
- Visual markers for emotions.
- Active Archie.
- Tackle bullying through good education of the children.
- Teachers always available if needed.
- Yoga after school.
Please make any suggestions for how you think the school could further support and promote wellbeing.
- Enter more external sports competitions.Mindfulness sessions. Focus on different emotions sessions.
- Encourage trying new foods and importance of a varied and balanced diet.
- More healthy options for breakfast club.
- Small accomplishments should be recognised to help boost confidence.
- Make the half term homework more friendly- not as time consuming.
- Opportunity for children to let teachers know if they are happy/ok/sad. Maybe through coloured tokens or faces.
- Further P.E sessions.
- If a child is anxious about school some mornings, maybe having a different teacher each day greeting them would help.
- Keep communication with parents.
Response
We are really pleased that the questionnaire has had such positive responses and it reassures staff and governors that the mental health and wellbeing of the children is, as it should be, at the heart of what we do. Thank you for the suggestions on how we can further improve our approach to ensuring good mental health and wellbeing. Below are some actions that we will take in response.
Actions
- Continue to enter all sports competitions that are available to KS1 children. We will also look into setting up our own interschool competitions with other local schools.
- Ensure that our new Personal social health and relationships education curriculum (for September 2020) includes more explicit teaching about different emotions and includes opportunities for mindfulness.
- Continue to provide children with opportunities to try new foods and understand the importance of a varied and balanced diet, including specific activities during Healthy School Week as well as of part of the science and DT curriculum.
- Review our breakfast club menu to ensure it offers and healthy and nutritious breakfast.
- Continue to recognise children’s accomplishments through our praise and reward systems, including regular verbal praise, marbles in the jar, names on the rainbow, certificates and sharing of good work.
- Continue to plan homework which offers the flexibility for families in terms of how much time is spent completing work, and for Year 1 children offering the option to only complete some of the tasks.
- Develop a system within each classroom where children are able to let an adult know, in a non-verbal way, if they are worried or sad about something.
- Continue to ensure the P.E curriculum is delivered with 2 hours P.E a week for each class. (For reception children this is one formal P.E session for the whole class per week, alongside daily focused group sessions with Mr Catherall, to develop fundamental skills).
- We will continue to communicate via PING as well as keeping our open door policy so that parents are free to speak to staff, either in person or via telephone, to discuss anything.
Resources
Happy?OK?Sad?
Warrington's Happy? Ok? Sad? website has information on;
-Mental wellbeing and being LGBT (for children and young people)
-Mental Health resources for children and young people, and adults who support them
-Signposting or referring children and young people into support services
Young Minds
Information for parents on how to help a child suffering with anxiety.
Gozen
Activities to support children experiencing anxiety. Their YouTube channel has guided videos with relaxation, deep breathing and meditations.
NHS Advice Mental Health and Wellbeing
The NHS’s Every Mind Matters campaign has now released expert advice on how best to look after mental wellbeing while staying at home during the coronavirus outbreak. The advice contains practical steps a person can take and includes videos, tutorials and links to other useful resources.
https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/
Government Advice Mental Health and Wellbeing
Advice for parents and carers on looking after the mental health and wellbeing of children or young people during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak:
Mental Health Foundation
Looking after your mental health during the Coronavirus outbreak.
The British Psychological Society
Support and advice for schools and parents/carers
Special Needs Jungle
Calming corona virus anxiety in children (and everyone else)
https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/calming-coronavirus-anxiety-children-everyone-else/#Update
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