We provide the young people, families and local community with wellbeing initiatives, mental health first aid, mentoring, cognitive behaviour therapy, group role and play therapy, ambassador initiatives and parental workshops and classes.
We provide the young people, families and local community with wellbeing initiatives, mental health first aid, mentoring, cognitive behaviour therapy, group role and play therapy, ambassador initiatives and parental workshops and classes.
We have members of staff at different levels who have been mental health first aid trained, a school trained counsellor and an employee outreach programme.
We have begun to host network meetings to share good practice, link with local authors and create support networks for our staff and students.
We also collaborate with key mental health charities, have supported a primary programme with Mosaic, are supporting Scope with their Mindful Monsters primary programme and are developing a supportive assessment system with outside agencies which will show the impact of our work.
We have become the home of Westminster Children’s University and actively support children in joining to raise aspirations and give opportunities which wouldn’t normally be afforded to them. This is currently open to 6 schools with the look to expand significantly over the coming months.
We also work with the young community champions in giving our children chances to learn about health and wellbeing and also volunteer at a local care home.
We use a local allotment, arts mark classes and local community partners to share in new initiatives and support others.
We actively seek mental health and wellbeing professionals to further upskill our teachers, support staff and office staff and are, with the support of others sharing our skills with others.
We actively evaluate our offer through whole school, small group and individual evaluations. We actively seek pupil voice through student council in improving provision. We share new practice, ask for feedback and try and involve children in shaping our provision at every opportunity possible.
I have been overwhelmed with the support our school has received in relation to our mental health and wellbeing facility. The challenges that will come from this and have come from this is school budgets, these budgets are phenomenally reduced and getting a good quality provision is difficult. This has meant we have had to think creatively and utilise the resources we have available to us.
We also had to get staff buy in which meant creating an enabling curriculum based around the principles of wellbeing, supporting the use of support staff as an aid to positive mental health and being reflective on their own practice.
We have a whole school approach, meaning that even if those who led the overarching programme left, the resources and rigour are still in place.
We have assessments which have proved the outcomes and national data which too has promoted the academic achievement since implementing the wellbeing programme. Longer established community links remain an active part of our school.
Our service is regularly evaluated, and more recently reviewed in a teaching and learning review which proved its impact. We also send out regular child, parent and staff questionnaires related to wellbeing and the impact the provision has had on them.
We also ask for people who have shared training with us to evaluate our impact.
We are also working alongside the IOE and through this we are actioning and implementing change through hard and soft skill data.
Our service has improved outcomes academically – placing us in the top 3% in the country for progress. It has also enriched engagement in extra-curricular aspiring programmes by over 200%. Soft skill data prove happiness, feeling of belonging and resilience is ever improving.
We are committed to sharing our work through others through the introduction of whole triborough network meetings led by Queen’s Park Primary. We have engaged with local businesses to support with their mental health and wellbeing programmes and actively share training with the community leaders. Our school counsellor has developed training material which has been shared with the local community and other schools.
We are aiming to be a centre of excellence for educational wellbeing and would love to share our skills and best practice with all.
