WellBeing
Mental Health & Wellbeing is a high priority for pupils and staff at Sutton Road Primary School and the Senior Leadership Team leads this.
| Responsibility | Staff Members |
|---|---|
| Designated Safeguarding Leads |
|
| Inclusion Team |
|
| PSHE Coordinator |
|
| Mental Health First Aiders |
|
Meet our Mental Health First Aiders
I am Mrs Darwood-Brown and I’m a Teaching Assistant in KS2. I lead the Learning Group and I complete lots of different interventions with a variety of children who need my support.
Along with other staff, I am the schools Mental Health First Aider.
To me, well-being is all about being happy and healthy and not letting my surroundings and the people around me have a negative effect on that. A person’s well-being, whether that is their emotional or physical well-being is extremely important and should be considered without question. It is about wanting to thrive and to not just exist. If a person is aware of what effects their well-being, they can put strategies in place to ensure they can deal with life’s challenges and so have a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life.
Hi, I am Miss Beecroft and I am a Teaching Assistant in year 5.
I have recently completed Mental Health First Aid courses for both adults and children. My role within school is to build positive relationships, encourage good physical health, develop coping strategies and resilience and create an environment that promotes well-being.
I wanted to become a Mental Health First Aider to help and support those I work closely with. I hope to achieve this by raising awareness and offering support to anyone who needs it by listening to the individual and suggesting activities or strategies to promote well-being.
Well-being to me means being happy and healthy.
I feel mental health is as important as physical health, especially at the moment with all the challenges that we are having to cope with. Now, more than ever, it is important to keep talking and looking out for one another.
Hello, my name is Mrs Fearn and I am the Deputy Inclusion Leader at Sutton Road Primary. As part of this role, I support lots of children with interventions around their emotional wellbeing and I am one of the school’s Mental Health First Aiders.
When I think about wellbeing, I think about an analogy I heard once:
You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.
Why did you spill the coffee?
"Well because someone bumped into me, of course!"
Wrong answer.
You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.
Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.
*Whatever is inside the cup, is what will spill out.*
Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It's easy to fake it, until you get rattled. *So we have to ask ourselves... “what's in my cup?" When life gets tough, what spills over? Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility? Or anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions?
For me looking after my wellbeing is being aware of what helps me when my cup is filling up with negativity. It’s also about choosing what has an impact on you and seeing the positivity where possible (which isn’t always easy).
When looking after others, I think it’s the little things that makes the biggest difference, noticing people, making a cup of tea or sharing a smile. Together we can help each other to stay well.
How do we promote positive mental health at Sutton Road?
At our school, we aim to promote positive mental health for every member of our staff and for every child. We pursue this aim using both universal, whole school approaches and specialised, targeted approaches aimed at vulnerable pupils and support for staff.
In addition to promoting positive mental health, we aim to recognise and respond to mental ill-health. In an average classroom, three children will be suffering from a diagnosable mental health issue. By developing and implementing practical, relevant and effective mental health policies and procedures we can promote a safe and stable environment for pupils affected both directly, and indirectly by mental ill-health.
Staff are trained in delivering specific interventions with children. Teaching Assistants are trained in interventions including ELSA, Lego Therapy, Talk & Draw, Emotional toolkit, anger management resources including the Incredible 5 point scale and de-escalation strategies from Coping with Risky Behaviours (CRB) training, Queen Bees and Wannabees intervention and Positive Play. These are delivered with either individuals or groups of children.
The skills, knowledge and understanding needed by our pupils to keep themselves and others physically and mentally healthy and safe are included as part of our developmental PSHE curriculum. This also links to our whole school values and activities such as Talking Points. This approach helps to teach children about life skills including how to manage their own emotions so that they are skilled in articulating how they feel in situations.
All classes practise Take Five practices which focus on grounding and resilience.
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