Mental Health and Wellbeing

At St. Bede’s, we are committed to supporting our whole school community’s positive mental health and well-being. We recognise that mental health and emotional wellbeing is just as important to our lives as physical health.

We endeavour to ensure that children can manage times of change and stress. We aim to ensure that they are supported to reach their potential or access help when they need it. We also have a role in ensuring that children learn about: what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what affects their mental health, how they can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues and where they can go if they need help or support.

Teaching about mental health

At St. Bede’s, we take a whole-school approach to promoting positive mental health, aiming to help children become more resilient, happy, and successful and work in a pro-active way to avoid problems. We do this by:

• Creating and applying consistent ethos, policies and behaviours that support mental health and resilience and which everyone understands.
• Helping children to develop social relationships, support each other and seek help when they need it.
• Promoting self-esteem and ensuring children understand their importance in the World.
• Helping children to be resilient learners and to manage setbacks.
• Teaching children social and emotional skills and an awareness of mental health.
• Identifying children who have mental health challenges and planning support to meet their needs, including working with specialist services, parents and carers.
• Supporting and training staff to develop their skills and their own resilience.
• Developing an open culture where it’s normal to talk about mental health.

Parents and carers

Parents or carers should approach their child/children’s class teacher if they have any mental health concerns. This will be cascaded to the Inclusion Leader for assessment. In addition to offering universal support within the school, we may also discuss with you additional support mechanisms available to you from the following agencies:

• School Nursing Service www.healthforkids.co.uk (Interactive website for children and parents)
• CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service)
• Educational Psychologist

We also hold termly mental health days, where children will explore a theme surrounding positive mental health, providing them with opportunities to share their worries or concerns, knowing that they will be heard and responded to.

Our school also provides other vehicles for exploring and promoting well-being, such as through our Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA), ‘Circle of Friends’ groups, ‘The Lunch Bunch’, and Drawing Therapy.