St Patrick's Catholic Primary School
Wellbeing & Mental Health
At St Patricks.....
We believe that paying more attention to the present moment - your own thoughts and feelings and to the natural world around you, can improve your mental health and wellbeing. Having this awareness is known as "mindfulness". Being accepting of the past, mindful of the present and hopeful for the future can help us to enjoy life more and guide us to understand our own thoughts and feelings better. Having a sense of "mindfulness" is proven to help children focus and can be helpful when used as a way to "calm down". We believe that our sense of wellbeing can be affected by our holistic health including our physical and emotional health.
Our Commitment....
As a nurturing community, we are committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of our pupils, families and staff members. We consider that in order for our community to flourish and thrive we need to create and maintain an atmosphere of high expectations underpinned by the promotion of core values such as tolerance, love, forgiveness and respect. We believe that interactions in a friendly and happy school environment will enable a positive mindset to be achieved. With this in mind, we know that everyone can experience challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times ANYONE may need additional emotional support. We believe that it is the role of the school community to support and promote a positive mental health in order to ensure that parents can play the crucial role as the first educators, children achieve and staff develop. We place a great emphasis on a vibrant home/school relationship based on trust, understanding and clear communication.
In Action
Our role in school is to ensure that members of our community feel safe and happy and are able to manage their thoughts and feelings during times of stress. We would like our children to feel supported to reach their potential and feel confident in the knowledge that they are able to access help when they need it. Children are taught when to seek help, by whom and also to have an understanding of what help is available to them no matter what age and stage they are learning at.
We consider that the key elements to supporting good mental health is...
with this in mind we base our Mental Health and Wellbeing curriculum with a holistic approach in mind.
Supporting Physical Health
We believe that having a positive mental health and wellbeing is as important as achieving a good physical health. We promote the achievement of a good physical health by ensuring that children have access to both a PE and an outdoor game lesson each week. Children are happy to engage in the ‘Wellbeing Walk’ each day and enjoy active lunchtimes were games and activities are planned and delivered. These organised activities and games during play times are to inspire children to engage in high levels of physical activity and to promote inclusion. A range of sport-related after school clubs are ran by teachers and external coaches and are made available to all year groups every half term. Many of our pupils also take part in both intra and inter-school sporting competitions which include a wide range of sports activities.
Supporting Mental Health and Well Being
We believe that teaching about mental health and emotional wellbeing as part of an inclusive PSHE curriculum is vital – but also recognise the importance of supporting these elements in our day to day curriculum teaching. PSHE is central to the curriculum and our coverage breaks down learning into many topics such as Health and Wellbeing, Keeping Safe and Managing Risk and Equality and Diversity and Living in the Wider World – to name a few. Through this teaching we aim to promote children's mental health and wellbeing through them gaining an enriched understanding of their own emotions and the development of healthy coping strategies.
Click on the link to learn more about our PSHE Curriculum and to see it in action...