Mental Health and Well-being
We believe well-being is all about our holistic health including physical and emotional. At Grove Road, we are committed to supporting the health and well-being of our pupils and staff to ensure that the school is a community where everyone feels able to thrive. Positive mental well-being is essential if children and young people are to flourish and lead fulfilling lives.
At Grove Road we:
- help children to understand their emotions and feelings better
- help children feel comfortable sharing any concerns or worries
- help children socially to form and maintain relationships
- promote self-esteem and ensure children know that they count
- encourage children to be confident and ‘dare to be different’
- help children to develop emotional resilience and to manage setbacks
At our school, we know that everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times anyone may need additional emotional support. We take the view that positive mental health is everybody’s business and that we all have a role to play.
Two key elements to support good mental health are:
- Feeling Good – experiencing positive emotions like happiness, contentment and enjoyment. Including feelings like curiosity, engagement and safety.
- Functioning Well – how a person is able to function in the world, this includes positive relationships and social connections, as well as feeling in control of your life and having a sense of purpose.
Our role in school is to ensure that children are able to manage times of change and stress, and that they are supported to reach their potential or access help when they need it. Children are taught when to seek help, what help is available, and the likely outcome of seeking support so that they have the confidence and knowledge for themselves or others. We also have a role to ensure that children learn about what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what affects their mental health and how they can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues. As part of our targeted provision, we have and continue to access, outside help and support for pupils when required.
At Grove Road, we believe that teaching about mental health and emotional wellbeing as part of a comprehensive PSHE curriculum is vital. PSHE is central to the curriculum across the whole school and assists pupils to cope with the changes at puberty, introduces them to a wider world, manage transitions and enables them to make an active contribution to their communities. The concepts covered in PSHE include keeping safe and managing risk, identity, equality, managing feelings and emotions, relationships, change, resilience and being healthy, which includes physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. We aim to promote pupils’ wellbeing through an understanding of their own and others’ emotions and the development of healthy coping strategies.
Good mental health and wellbeing is just as important as good physical health. Like physical health, mental health can range across a spectrum from healthy to unwell; it can fluctuate on a daily basis and change over time. We include World Mental Health Day and Mental Health Awareness Week in the school calendar and plan activities for the whole school.
At Grove Road we offer different levels of support:
Universal needs - the needs of all children and young people and opportunities to develop resilience
Additional needs - the needs of those made vulnerable at some time by life experiences
Targeted needs - the needs of those children and young people who need differentiated support and resources
Specialist needs - those children and young people who are having specialist intervention by trained professionals.
Feel Good Five
In order to learn effectively we equip pupils with the skills to look after their emotional health and well-being. These skills are then referred to and used on a daily basis. There are five ways pupils are encouraged to improve their emotional health and well-being:
- Connect: Spend time with family and friends. Enjoy doing things together and talking to each other.
- Be active: It keeps you physically healthy, and makes you feel good
- Keep learning: Try something new. Try a new hobby, or learn about something just because it interests you.
- Take notice: Take a break to see how you feel. Relax and look around you or listen to music, take a few deep breaths.
- Give: Do something for a friend or relation/adult, as well as making them feel good, it can make you feel good too!
