Mental Health and Wellbeing

As part of our school vision for us all to "Live life in all its fullness," we place a very high priority on mental health and wellbeing for all those within our school community. We have weekly Wellbeing Booster afternoons for Key Stage 1, in which the children spend time in activities that delight them and support mental and emotional health. In class and in collective worship (assembly), we often take a minute to be calm and reflective, to take stock of our emotions and to prepare our minds for the next part of the day.

We also employ a trained Emotional Literacy Support Assistant ('ELSA') and a trained Eco Therapy practitioner to work with children who need a little extra support with their emotional or social wellbeing.

As well as teaching the children the importance of looking after their mental health and wellbeing, we have a parent lending library of books to encourage wellbeing and good mental health at home and to support familes living with a range of situations such as adjusting to the arrival of a new baby, or coping with financial difficulties, illness or death as well sensitive storybooks designed to help children deal with anger, anxiety or changing family circumstances.

We value the wellbeing of our staff and have in place a Staff Wellbeing Policy and staff training on the importance of taking care of our own wellbeing as well as that of the children. We also have a staff 'Secret Buddy' system in which little gifts or encouraging notes are left secretly for each other and then our gratitude for the smiles these produce are added to a 'Thanks a Million' board in the staff room.

Book Recommendations

We have been working on increasing the representations of diversity in our school resources, including investing in high quality new books for classrooms and to enhance our reading scheme books. We are always on the lookout for new examples of inspirational people to enhance our curriculum and many of these reflect the importance we place on diversity, in order to empower children who may not otherwise see representations they can identify with in literature and history, and to widen the scope of our curriculum to better reflect the wonderfully diverse society in which we live.