Wellbeing
Mental Health and Wellbeing
At St Giles’ C of E Primary school, we recognise that mental health and emotional wellbeing are important to our everyday lives in just the same way as our physical health. Through our shared vision “Inspire,
Believe, Achieve” we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community.
The Department for Education (DfE) recognises that:
“Good mental health is important for helping children and young people to develop and thrive. Schools and colleges have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils and students, by developing approaches tailored to the particular needs of their pupils. Taking a coordinated and evidence-informed approach to mental health and wellbeing in schools and colleges can also help foster readiness to learn.”
Promoting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing: A whole school and college approach (2021)
Our Intent
At St Giles’ C of E Primary School, we aim to help develop our pupil’s resilience around their own mental health and to be a school community where:
- All children are respected and valued
- Children have a strong sense of belonging and feel safe in their surroundings
- Children feel able to talk openly with trusted adults about their worries or concerns without feeling any stigma
- Positive mental health is promoted and valued
- Our Pastoral Team provide an excellent caring and support system for all our pupils, staff and parents
- Our Well Being Committee take responsibility for supporting their peers
- All staff are aware of how to support children with their feelings and know who to sign post them to for further support
- Each class has a well being Panda mascot that is our school symbol for mental health and wellbeing.
- Any form of bullying is not tolerated
Implementation
St Giles’ C of E Primary School is a place where children experience a nurturing and caring environment that develops self-esteem and give positive experiences to help overcome adversity and builds in our core values of Respect, Responsibility and Resilience. We believe that offering positive relationships for all staff, parents and pupils is a key ingredient in promoting wellbeing. We feel that this helps create a real sense of belonging and local community.
We will provide our children the opportunities through:
- Our RSE and PSHE curriculum
- Pastoral support sessions and interventions
- Well Being Committee/ Peer support groups/ Well Being Wednesday!
- Mental well-being sessions/ Well Being Focus Weeks
- Circle time activities
- Worships
- Visiting speakers
- Education Mental Health and Well Being Practitioner Support (Trailblazer Project, Melanie Watkins)
Impact
Our role in school is to make sure that our children can manage times of change and stress. Children will gain knowledge of who or where they can go to seek out any help and support that is needed. They will learn strategies to stay mentally healthy, explore how worries and stress can affect their mental health and develop understanding and empathy with those who are struggling with their mental health.
Mental health is not just the absence of mental health problems.
We want all of our children to:
- Feel confident within themselves
- Be able to express a range of emotions appropriately
- Be able to make and maintain positive relationships with their peers and staff members alike
- Understand and cope positively with the stresses of everyday life
- Manage times of stress and be able to deal with change
- Understand that some feelings of nerves and stress are part of everyday life and can be seen as a good thing to help them do their very best
- Learn and achieve their full potential
As stated throughout, at St Giles’ CofE Primary School we not only recognise the importance of supporting our children’s wellbeing, but we also recognise our whole School Community’s mental health and wellbeing, which includes all our staff, governors, parents and carers.
We also have a dedicated Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP), please click here to find out more.
Our Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Policy can be found on the Policies section of our website.
Staff who support your children with their Mental Health and Well Being at St Giles’ School are:
