Mental Health and Wellbeing

At Kingswood Parks Primary School, we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community (children, staff, parents and carers), and recognise how important mental health and emotional wellbeing is to our lives in just the same way as physical health.

We recognise that children’s mental health is a crucial factor in their overall wellbeing and can affect their learning and achievement. As a school, our caring ethos and environment has a major impact on the wellbeing of our staff and children. We clearly define our culture and vision, making it clear what behaviours, values and beliefs underpin it. We prioritise building a culture of trust where school staff and children feel valued, can be open about their health and wellbeing and know how to access support if they need it.

Our aim is to help develop the protective factors which build resilience to mental health problems and to be a school where:

At our school:

• Every morning, your child’s class teacher or teaching assistant will be at the door to welcome them into school. This is to start the day off with positive interaction, to ensure a sense of belonging and to allow an opportunity for your child to share any news or concerns they may have.
• Every classroom has a visual timetable, so children are aware what to expect from their day. They are also prepared as much as possible for any changes to their normal routine.
• If children experience problems through their day, all staff are trained to use restorative questions to support children to understand what has happened, the impacts on their feelings and how to come up with their own solutions to move forward.
• We have school expectations instead of school rules, which are referred to throughout the school day. We have a school council, support healthy schools and run a range of extra curriculum clubs.

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 can 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.

At Kingswood Parks Primary School, 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.

We offer different levels of support:

Universal Support – To meet the needs of all our pupils through our overall ethos and our wider curriculum. For instance, developing resilience for all.

Additional support – For those who may have short term needs and those who may have been made vulnerable by life experiences such as bereavement.

Targeted support – For pupils who need more differentiated support and resources or specific targeted interventions such as wellbeing groups or personal mentors.

Lead staff members:

Further information: