Mental Health & Well-Being

Wellbeing Award

Primrose Hill is working towards the Wellbeing Award for Schools Accreditation. The award will recognise our commitment to supporting, educating and protecting emotional wellbeing and mental health in our whole school community. Using an evidence based framework, to drive change, the WAS award focuses on developing the long-term culture of the whole school, supporting our existing vision of well-being as an essential and integral part of our culture and ethos.

Developed by Optimus Education in partnership with NCB, the Wellbeing Award for Schools provides formal recognition that a school has met very high standards of provision for emotional wellbeing and mental health. It provides schools with a rigorous framework for implementing a range of strategies to bring about positive change for the wellbeing and mental health of the whole school.

Vision Statement

At Primrose Hill we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school through raising awareness of the importance of ‘Talk, Think and Share’, should worries or issues arise. All children go through ups and downs during school and some face significant life events, which can impact their overall wellbeing and learning. We acknowledge mental health and wellbeing as a whole school responsibility, with the overall aim to help children, to develop resilience and coping strategies, which support overall well-being.

Our vision statement, supporting policies and behaviours support the positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community. They include the following:

Effectively working with parents and carers to forge a strong partnership, including providing opportunities to develop their own knowledge and understanding around emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Helping children to become resilient learners through supportive strategies.

Teaching children through our ‘Personal Health and Social Education’ (PHSE) curriculum, the social and emotional skills to support their positive mental health and wellbeing.

Early identification of support for children who have mental health needs, to plan and support their needs. This includes working with multi-agencies and specialist services.

The school supports staff through training to develop staff skills and their own resilience.

We also recognise the stigmas surrounding mental health issues. The school has worked hard to create an open and positive culture in our whole school community.

Mental Health at Primrose Hill Primary School

Since appointment to the role of Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead in 2020, there have been numerous initiatives and supportive measures established to develop our whole school approach.

Child Mental Health and Well-Being

We conducted rigorous reviews of all government literature pertaining to mental health and well-being to ensure we were well-read on all guidance pertaining to Mental Health and well-being, in schools. Extensive staff training was undergone, to ensure staff were adept at identifying risk factors, linked to Mental health and wellbeing.

To support back to school, in 2020:
● Government recommended texts were shared throughout school supplemented by activities which encouraged focusing on the positive aspects of lockdown- new skills learnt, concepts of hope and resilience etc.
● Brain breaks were introduced including such activities as yoga, power poses and meditation. Shorter lesson times were established with foundation subjects now being taught in the morning to ensure continued engagement
● Core subjects were divided into two lessons to accommodate potential lapses in concentration
● Pupil voice was obtained, and children were highly aware of all the initiatives and spoke of their delight at being back in school.
● Parents were kept abreast throughout, using our communication platform DOJO They spoke of their support and recognition for all the initiatives. Praising the leadership team and the educators in all their efforts.

Currently, there are a plethora of initiatives to support child Mental Health and well-being such as: The Anti-Bullying Ambassador programme created by the Diana Foundation, whereby children are trained in restorative practice methods to be utilized at lunch and break times. They will then train future classes in these practices. This is an annual initiative, which Year 5 students engage with.

Building whole school awareness of Mental Health and challenging stigmas has been an important feature of the development of our school offer. This served as the impetus for the whole school recognizing anti-bullying week and Mental Health Awareness week. Whereby an abundance of activities, discussions and live feeds were engaged in- to raise awareness and challenge stigmas around Mental Health and bullying. Children even engaged in Yoga streamed live from a tutor which was particularly successful.

The school regularly promotes nation wide campaigns to promote mental health and wellbeing, such as raising the red card to racism and anti-bullying awareness campaigns, as these are viewed as raising awareness of bigger issues linked to mental wellbeing, while supporting the removal of stigmas and encouraging open conversations.

Rewards and restorative practices are embedded within the culture at Primrose Hill Primary School. Regular award ceremonies and prizes are distributed to acknowledge the development of positive academic but also social and emotional skills. Positive reinforcements are proven to impact on mental health and wellbeing.

Current Initiatives

● We have developed a Mental Health and well-being policy and vision statement, to clearly focus our attentions and approach, within school.
● We have introduced a system which promotes discussing our feelings, through the use of Emojars, in class. This is regularly shared with parents on our class pages
● We work with parents through our change team half termly meetings to develop a sense of whole-school responsibility.
● We are developing a cool and calm room, to facilitate counselling and meditative practices within school, for children who need them.
● We are developing an aspirations development project, in March, linked to careers week, whereby leading professionals will discuss their career journeys with children, as a tool to develop self-motivation which is strongly linked to well-being.
● Children completed questionnaires to assess their feelings towards our current provision to ensure they are included in the process.
● Regular pupil voice is obtained to ensure initiatives are developed and their success assessed.
● The worry box was developed and promoted, which allows children to write their worries down and ensure they are actioned by a member of the SENCO team.
● Children engage regularly in meditation, philosophy for children and other mindful promoting activities through brain breaks
● We are looking to develop educational games to start the school day to promote attendance and wellbeing.
● Children regularly engage in enrichment activities, such as a magician and circus skills team, who visit, as a tool to support overall mental health and well-being.

Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing

Questionnaire data revealed staff viewed interacting with each other, learning and new skill and engaging in quizzes as having the greatest positive impact on their well-being.
This led to the concept of Well-being Wednesday being developed, whereby staff engage in an activity together every Wednesday. Well-being Wednesday was launched in Primrose Hill in January 2020. So far we have engaged in yoga, Pilates, a psychic medium remotely visited, dodgeball and quizzes, meditation, candle making, pizza making and music bingo.
Collaborative working is encouraged at Primrose Hill Primary, as a supportive measure for Mental Health and wellbeing. Staff receive their PPA time together, in school to promote team working practices. Teachers are also given the opportunity to book subject leader time to support work life balance.
Annual appraisals allow teachers the opportunity to develop their careers and aspirations, through a dedicated commitment by the leadership team to support progression and training, linked to interests.
An open door policy is in operation by the headteacher, who promotes all staff freely discussing any issues or celebrating any successes.
A ‘compliments’ display is currently being developed which promotes acknowledging all staff successes through staff and children writing compliments to each other on it, as a tool to embed a culture which acknowledges the positive acts and traits of the whole school community .

Parent Mental Health and Wellbeing

Parents are kept abreast of all developments through a well-being Wednesday post, on the communication platform Dojo.
Parents are encouraged to contribute to all matters pertaining to the whole school community approach to mental health and well-being, through the half termly, change team meetings.
An open door policy exists for parents, who have concerns for their child, or themselves, whereby a member of the SENCO/ SEND will offer advice and support.
There are links to a plethora of useful websites in our Mental Health policy.