Mental Health & Wellbeing
Mental Health Week May 2024
Tuesday 25th June 2024 at 9am – For Parents, free workshop
At Yeading Infant and Nursery School, we are under a statutory duty to promote the welfare of our pupils – this includes preventing impairment of children’s health or development, and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes. The role of our school in supporting and promoting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing can be summarised as follows:
- Prevention: Creating a safe and calm environment where mental health problems are less likely, improving the mental health and wellbeing of the whole school population, and equipping pupils to be resilient so they can manage the normal stress of like effectively. Prevention work will include teaching pupils about mental health through the curriculum and reinforcing this through school activities and ethos.
- Identification: Recognising emerging issues as early and accurately as possible.
- Early support: Helping pupils to access evidence-based early support and interventions.
- Access to specialist support: Working effectively with external agencies to provide swift access to referrals to specialist support and treatment.
Schools are not required to have a standalone policy on mental health. Schools are, however, required to have a range of policies that can be used to promote mental health. Adjustments may also need to be made to various school policies to ensure they support pupils with mental health difficulties. Sometimes, a pupil’s mental health difficulties may amount to SEND. In these cases, we consider how best to use SEND resources to provide support to these pupils. Arrangements also need to be in place that reflect the importance of safeguarding and promoting welfare. Mental health issues can sometimes be an indicator that a child has suffered or is at risk of suffering harm. Under ‘Keeping children safe in education’, if staff have a mental health concern that is also a safeguarding concern, immediate action should be taken, following their school’s child protection policy and speaking to the DSL or a deputy.
Creating a whole school culture
Our approach is one that goes beyond the teaching in the classroom to pervade all aspects of school life, including:
• Culture, ethos and environment: The health and wellbeing of pupils and staff is promoted through the ‘hidden’ or ‘informal’ curriculum, including leadership practice, the school’s policies, values and attitudes, alongside the social and physical environment of the school. We have three trained Mental Health First Aiders in school;
- Deputy Headteacher
- Learning mentor
- Welfare officer
• Teaching: The curriculum is used to develop pupils’ knowledge about health and wellbeing. We teach pupils about zones of regulation and support them in understanding feelings and showing empathy
• Partnerships with families and the community: Schools should proactively engage with families, external agencies and the wider community to promote consistent support for pupils’ health and wellbeing. We share links and further information on our website and Instagram.
Other information
Hillingdon Mind - Working to develop good relationships with the community and support our families. For more information please click the link above.
