Wallands Community Primary Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing
At Wallands Community Primary and Nursery School, we know children will learn best when they feel emotionally safe and secure. We prioritised mental health and emotional wellbeing over the last two years and will continue to do so to mitigate the impact of the pandemic for our children. Our staff foster positive relationships with the children and support them both academically and emotionally.
We support their emotional wellbeing through a variety of school systems:
- Mental health and emotional wellbeing is incorporated into our RSHE curriculum across the school
- Assemblies – aspects of mental health and self-care are incorporated into our assemblies throughout the year
- THRIVE sessions and emotional check-ins – staff and parents can refer to SENCo for opportunities for their child to speak to our SENCo or Behaviour and Pastoral lead to provide emotional support. This may then lead to regular sessions to develop their emotional resilience.
- Therapy Dog – Our Therapy dog , Buddy, visits once a week and children are able to come and read or chat to him.
- Worry boxes – we have worry boxes in school where children can post their worries. These are then read and responded to regularly.
- Buddies and Peer Mentors – research shows that children will often talk to their peers about their worries, rather than an adult. We have trained groups of children in Yr2, Yr4 and Yr 6 who are on duty in the playground across the week for children to talk to. These groups are trained and supported by our SENCo to ensure they can pass on any worries and they are safe.
- Promotion of physical activity – through the daily mile and PE. The link between being physically active and mental health is explicitly taught to children.
- On site Counsellor and Play therapy - we have access to an onsite counsellor and student play therapist.
We access a range of outside services to support our children’s wellbeing as well. Some of these are outlined in our Policy. We also include regular updates of available services in our monthly newsletter to parents.
One of the most challenging areas over the last two years is the rise in levels of anxiety amongst our community. In school we talk to children about worries, how these can make us feel and what we can do to help ourselves with our worries. If you are seeking advice about how to support your anxious child, Childline offer resources, one of which is the 'calm zone', available on this link:
