Mental Health & Wellbeing
At Hatton Park Primary, our commitment to keeping our children safe, and providing the best possible environment in which every child is cared for and able to learn and grow, underpins all our teaching and learning.
We are committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of our pupils and staff to ensure that the school is a community where everyone feels able to thrive. Positive mental wellbeing is essential if children and young people are to flourish and lead fulfilling lives.
A key aspect of 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. We also have a role to ensure that children learn about what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what can affect their mental health, how they can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues, and where they can go if they need help and support.
At Hatton Park Primary, 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 resilient, responsible ‘risk-takers’
- help children to develop emotional resilience and to manage setbacks
What do we do at Hatton Park Primary to support children's emotional wellbeing and mental health?
- Positive wellbeing is promoted through the curriculum and all school activities. Through a carefully planned approach to PSHE, our pupils are helped to acquire the knowledge and develop the skills and understanding they need to lead confident, healthy, independent lives, and to become resilient, informed and responsible citizens. 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.
- Within the National Curriculum, every child has a minimum of two hours of physical education each week. This is taught by our experienced PE Teacher, Mr Douglas, who also organises after-school sports activities.
- To support children’s social, emotional and mental development, we offer an extensive range of extra-curricular provisions, all with a view to increasing the range of experiences that children have, enabling them to make informed choices for adult life. Activities are designed to be fun and cater for a wide variety of interests.
- Whole school events are held including Mental Health Awareness Week in May, World Mental Health Day in October, and Anti-bullying Week in November. During these events, the focus is on mindfulness and resilience with the purpose of teaching children strategies for dealing with anxiety and copying with changes.
- Whole school approaches such as assemblies and interventions are used to further develop the pupils’ knowledge of strategies.
- Committed to gaining a fuller understanding of physical health and supporting the needs of all children, we are very proud of working towards the national Healthy Schools Award.
Looking after yourself
If things are getting you down, it’s important to recognise this. Talk to someone you trust and see what they think. It is easy to go on struggling with very difficult situations because you feel that you should be able to cope and don’t deserve any help.
Come and talk to us, in confidence and let us know when things are tough. As much as you try to hide how you are feeling from your child, they will notice even the smallest changes.
Go to your GP if things are really getting on top of you. Asking for some support from your doctor or a referral to a counselling service is a sign of strength. You can’t help your child if you are not being supported yourself.
Useful Links
https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/
A public health England and NHS site to help people take simple steps to look after their mental health, improve their mental wellbeing and support others.
https://www.mentallyhealthyschools.org.uk/
Quality-assured information, advice and resources to help primary schools understand and promote children’s mental health and wellbeing.
Place2Be is a children and young people's mental health charity with almost 30 years' experience working with pupils, families and staff in UK schools.