Wellbeing

We understand that emotional wellbeing is just as important as physical health. We aim to provide a positive environment in which all of our school community may flourish and be mentally strong and healthy. We recognise that, through our whole-school ethos, curriculum and environment, we can promote strong mental health and resilience.

We achieve this for our children by:

• Including mental health awareness in our PSHE curriculum
• Including emotional literacy in our PSHE curriculum, providing children with the vocabulary to describe their feelings
• Incorporating the Relationship Education curriculum into PSHE sessions
• Regular exercise and fresh air
• Half-termly whole-school assembly themes which provide positive examples of personal qualities and allow a chance for reflection
• Supporting children to build and sustain friendships
• Supporting all children to build relationships built on trust, respect, and consistency in order to ensure that all children feel safe whilst at school
• Having clear expectations of behaviour throughout the school
• Promoting a sense of belonging to the school community through taking part in inter-school competitions, and to a school House through inter-house events
• Providing children with a voice, through the School Council, Arts Ambassadors, Sports Ambassadors and Eco Warriors
• Building children’s self-esteem by giving the children a role of responsibility within the class or school, and by praising good behaviour for learning in the classroom, in assembly and in the newsletter
• Building children’s resilience by encouraging children to learn from their mistakes during lessons
• Encouraging good relationships and teamwork through our group work approach during lessons
• Ensuring that all children take part in Forest School sessions throughout the school year
• Instilling a sense of pride by including children in decisions about the school environment when possible
• Running a whole-school Wellbeing Week annually, which includes a range of activities and learning experiences to promote children’s wellbeing
• Promoting healthy eating throughout the school
• Promoting our own Behaviours for Learning through the awarding of House points and certificates in Celebration Assemblies. Our Behaviours for Learning are: keeping going, being a risk taker, showing respect, being motivated and engaged, taking responsibility, being a team player and aiming high.

We achieve this for our staff by:

• Headteacher termly support sessions
• Staff are regularly consulted regarding how the school operates
• Staff Mental Health worker in school
• Wellbeing Charter

We recognise that, at times, everyone can need support with their mental health. When a need is identified, extra provision can be provided in school, for example in the form of:

For Children

• Engaging in specially-tailored lunchtime clubs
• Workig with our ELSA (Emotonal Literacy Support Assistant)
• Focused small group support or therapy sessions
• Adapting routines and environments to improve a child’s mental health
• 1:1 time spent with ELSA practitioner
• Thrive work with children and parents
• Scheduled time with our therapy dog: Darcey

For Staff

• All staff have the opportunity to consult with Care First
• Involvement of Occupational Health and/or GP if appropriate (Staff Sickness Absence Management Policy)

EDUCATION STAFF WELLBEING CHARTER

As a state funded school we were invited to familiarise ourselves with the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter when it is launched during the autumn 2021.  This Charter outlines a commitment to protect, promote and enhance the wellbeing of our staff.  In signing this charter, Tatworth Primary School, commits to placing wellbeing and mental health at the heart of our decision making.  We will support staff to make positive choices for their own wellbeing and encourage a collegiate culture across and between all roles in the school.  Specifically, we commit to develop a long-term strategy for improving staff wellbeing that will:

• Prioritise staff mental health
• Give staff the support they need to take responsibility for their own and other people’s wellbeing
• Give managers access to the tools and resources they need to support the wellbeing of those they line manage.
• Establish a clear communications policy
• Give staff a voice in decision-making
• Drive down unnecessary workload
• Champion flexible working and diversity
• Create a good behaviour culture.
• Support staff to progress in their careers
• Include a sub-strategy for protecting leader wellbeing and mental health.
• Hold ourselves accountable, including by measuring staff wellbeing.

During 2021/22 academic year we:

• Extend supervision to more staff, having considered all roles.
• Appoint two mental health first aiders within the school and one director. These first aiders will look out for signs of wellbeing issues and signpost where help may be obtained.
• Consider a communications policy that will allow those staff who prefer to communicate during unsociable hours to do so, but that others understand that they are not expected to respond immediately.
• Set up automatic response to be set up on the Home Learning e-mail advising that the inbox may not be read outside of school hours
• Proactively look at general arrangements and why we do what we do in order to drive down unnecessary workload.

We will:

• Tackle mental health stigma within the organisation, promoting an open and understanding culture
• Give the same consideration and support to mental health and physical health, including in the management of staff absence
• Fulfil our legal duty to control the risks associated with work-related stress in the education setting so far as is reasonably practicable
• Channel support to individuals whose role is known to have a significant emotional component. This might take the form of peer support, supervision, and/or counselling
• Ensure that staff understand the real benefits that sensitive pastoral support can have, while also recognising where their limits are as non-specialists. We will therefore ensure there are opportunities to increase joint working in support of pupils, as well as routes to refer for specialist support.