Mental Health and Wellbeing at Leamington Community Primary School

Mental Health and Wellbeing at Leamington Community Primary School

At Leamington Community Primary School, mental health and emotional wellbeing are at the heart of everything we do. We are proud to foster an inclusive, safe and respectful environment where every child feels valued, supported and heard guided by our clear Leamington Values; we create a welcoming space where all children can thrive. Pupil voice is central to our approach – children know their opinions matter and they are encouraged to contribute to decisions that shape their school experience. We provide a wide range of opportunities to support families and strengthen our community links, helping to create a true sense of belonging for every child.

Good mental health and wellbeing improves standards in schools and helps pupils achieve and thrive in education, setting them up well for life and work.

Good mental health and wellbeing helps pupils:

  • attend school
  • develop key life skills, particularly social and emotional skills
  • engage in learning
  • achieve academically
  • have better longer term outcomes, such as future employment

Embedding an evidence-based, holistic, whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing helps to achieve this. Our weekly wellbeing lessons help children build emotional regulation skills, develop mental health literacy and understand how to care for themselves and others. We believe that strong, positive relationships between pupils and staff are the foundation of a healthy school community and we work hard to ensure every child feels connected and supported.

At Leamington, mental wellbeing isn’t just a lesson- it’s a culture.

Intent

Good mental health is fundamental to be able to thrive in life. At Leamington, we make it a priority to give our children the support and skills they need to be successful throughout their lives, therefore we ensure children’s mental health and wellbeing is embodied throughout our whole school curriculum. Good mental health is a key aspect of our children’s personal development. Our aim is to build pupils’ confidence, resilience and knowledge so that they can keep themselves mentally healthy and provide our pupils with an understanding of how to keep physically healthy, eat healthily and maintain an active lifestyle, including giving ample opportunities for pupils to be active during the school day and through extra-curricular activities. For example, we have sensory breaks to our daily timetable with all pupils completing sensory activities in every classroom at least twice a day to stimulate our pupils mentally as well as to support children’s vestibular and proprioceptive needs.

We also have a stimulating playground that supports our pupil’s emotional development and promotes positive mental health. We have created lots of opportunities to be active in the ‘Multi Use Games Area’ (MUGA) and ‘Gym’ area as well as physical challenges in our ‘Adventure Playground’ and ‘Strawberry Fields’ areas.

At Leamington, we plan for our curriculum to support children’s mental health by extending beyond the academic, vocational or technical curriculum and provide opportunities for pupils’ broader development. We pride ourselves on offering a wealth of enrichment opportunities to support pupils to be confident, resilient and independent, and to develop strength of character.

Implementation

Our aims are to remove the stigma around mental health and promote a safe environment where our children feel they can discuss their emotions and feel equipped with coping strategies when necessary. We believe prevention and early intervention is key and the staff in our school are dedicated to implementing whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing

At Leamington Community Primary School’s we follow a 4 stage graduated approach:

  • Prevention and early identification
  • Early intervention,
  • Intervention
  • High level intervention

We believe prevention and early identification are powerful strategies and therefore we are focusing on implementing a whole school approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing, as we believe every child should be taught how to stay mentally healthy in order to empower children with the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to cope throughout their lives.

 

Wellbeing Wednesday

At Leamington Community Primary School, the whole school dedicate every Wednesday afternoon to our PSHE/RSE lessons and other mindful, health and wellbeing lessons such as P.E. and Art. The whole school follow a focused ‘Wellbeing Wednesday’ structure that promotes health and wellbeing. This structure and its aims are:

Movement: Sensory breaks and physical activity to encourage movement

 

Connect Us: Activities and games to encourage peer interaction and introduce a theme

 

Stretch and relax: Stretching and yoga activities to create a calm and mindful space

Circle time: Implementation of the formal PSHE/RSE (Jigsaw) lesson. This is also a time to introduce stories, scenarios and discussions to explore a theme further

 

Feel & believe:  Affirmations for self-esteem, confidence and positivity as well as massages to promote deep relaxation.

Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) workshops

At Leamington Community Primary School we have made strong links with the Mental Health Support Team based in Alder Hey, in order to provide mental health and wellbeing support to as many pupils as possible. Our Mental Health Lead works closely with our assigned Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) to provide tailored support to the needs of our pupils. Our EMHP is Lydia, who is incredibly knowledgable. We have completed ‘Anxiety Workshops’ with our Year 4, 5 and 6 pupils, in which it was discussed how it feels to be anxious, what makes us feel anxious and what coping strategies we can use to support us when we feel this way. We are looking forward to providing more workshops with Lydia in the future around transitions and any other needs that arise. Our EMHP will also continue with 1-2-1 and a small group support (following a referral) and will continue to support our whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing.

If you are worried about your child’s mental health and wellbeing and wish to speak to our Mental Health Lead please contact Ashley Belger on 0151 284 7847 or alternatively you can self-refer on the Liverpool CAMHS website

https://seftonliverpoolcamhs.com/make-referral

Impact

At Leamington Community Primary School, we are passionate about promoting good mental health and removing the stigma around this subject so our children make a good level of personal development and are happy and healthy members of our school community. The impact of our whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing is evident in our school culture, environment and daily activities. We also have Wellbeing Journals for every child in the school to provide children with a space to be creative and complete wellbeing tasks which reflects the impact of our whole school approach to supporting our pupils’ wellbeing. The impact of this is also reflected in our pupil voice reviews and more formal questionnaires such as the OxWell survey.

Removing the stigma around mental health

We have made it our priority to remove the stigma around mental health and create a positive school culture by hosting a variety of focus days and tasks. Each year, in October we celebrate World Mental Health Day as well as Children’s Mental Health Week in February and other focused days throughout the academic year. We build mental health and wellbeing into our whole school curriculum through our PSHE lessons, Zones of Regulation curriculum and through our everyday interactions and culture within the school. We also use these focus days as another opportunity to build pupils’ self-esteem, confidence and sense of belonging by reminding them how much they are loved at Leamington! For example, each year on World Mental Health Day, every child in the school opens their locker to a heart! On this heart is a positive message for that child to remind them how amazing they are!

 

Other ways we promote Children’s Mental Health are:

  • Taking part in World Mental Health Day
  • Taking part in Children’s Mental Health week
  • Completing ‘Acts of Kindness challenge’
  • Completing Wellbeing Advent Calendars
  • Using Valentine’s hearts to give 14 reasons why we love welcoming our pupils through the door for every day in February in the run up to Valentine’s days
  • Use daily ‘Zones of Regulation’ check ins
  • Use Mental health focused books to inspire circle time activities

 

Team around the child approach

We also have a strong pastoral support and inclusion team that meets every fortnight to ensure our children’s needs are being meet. The inclusion includes:

  • Deputy Head teacher
  • Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)
  • SENCo
  • Assistant SENCo
  • Mental Health Lead
  • Learning Mentor
  • Family Support Worker
  • Attendance Officer
  • Wellbeing Governor

These members of staff engage with identified pupils and work to develop positive mental health strategies to support our children as well as work closely with other agencies in Liverpool to bring about better outcomes for our pupils. At Leamington we offer the four levels of support as identified below:

Leamington Community Primary School – Whole School Approach

 

 

Prevention and early identification

We support all children and young people through

  • Use the Zones of Regulation check in daily
  • Jigsaw scheme of work (PSHE)
  • Sensory breaks
  • Use of Mental health focused story books
  • Training all staff in mental health
  • Providing a variety of mental health and wellbeing training for parents
  • Wellbeing workshops provided by external agencies
  • Mentors available for all at lunchtime
  • Wellbeing warriors and resilience champions across the school

Early intervention from school staff

  • Inclusion team meetings- supporting early identification and opportunity to discuss concerns
  • Strong pastoral team: Safeguarding lead, Mentor, Attendance officer and Family Support Worker
  • Mentoring interventions: Resilience group, Socially Speaking, Talkabout, Beautiful Beginnings.
  • 1:1 mentoring to meet individual needs
  • ACEs course
  • Lunchtime nurture club

Intervention from external agencies

  • Together Trust staff (Occupational Therapist + Specialist advisory teacher) working with staff and pupils
  • Intergenerational Skills Café with LJMU
  • Intervention Wellbeing sessions with Lisa
  • Action for Children 1-2-1 mentoring
  • Oakleaf Bereavement
  • Educational Mental Health Practitioner
  • Seedlings

High level intervention

High level intervention through CAMHS at Alder Hey

  • CAMHS
  • Alder Hey Eating Disorder Service
  • CAMHS Crisis Care Line

Parental support

We acknowledge the importance of supporting our parents and support our community through the following training/ support networks:

  • Zones of Regulation parent training led by the SENCo and Mental Health Lead to support behaviour and emotional regulation at home.
  • Mental Health First Aid for parents course
  • Intergenerational cookery programme for parents and pupils
  • Links with My Clubmoor parent classes
  • Baby book club

 For more information see the key documentation below:

 

Useful websites

Whether you’re concerned about yourself or a loved one, these helplines and support groups can offer expert advice.

Ask Sam – Children can write a letter to Sam if there is something on their mind or they need support. They can also contact a counsellor for free or call 0800 1111

CAHMS- Liverpool CAHMS provides mental health support and advice for children and young people in Liverpool.
https://www.liverpoolcamhs.com/

Kooth: Kooth is your online mental wellbeing community. Access free, safe and anonymous support for children age 10+
https://www.kooth.com/

Mjnd– Information about the different places you can go for help when you need support for how you’re feeling.
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/for-children-and-young-people/

SHOUT: if a child is unable to cope and needs immediate support, they can text “Shout” to 85258. It’s free and available 24/7

YoungMinds
Information on child and adolescent mental health. Services for parents and professionals.
Phone: Parents’ helpline 0808 802 5544 (Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 4pm)
www.youngminds.org.uk

 

Other links you may find useful: