Our Mental Health Leads are Mrs R Ryan and Mrs N Wright

There are many ways in which we support our pupils’ mental health and emotional wellbeing.

• We encourage and support our pupils to understand their feelings and emotions. We do this through our curriculum and everyday school life.
• We encourage our pupils to be resilient when challenges occur, to be ready to learn through having a positive mindset, and to be respectful to others. This is embedded in our positive behaviour policy
• We encourage our pupils to be self-confident and develop their self-esteem, ensuring that they all know that they matter.
• We support our pupils to know that they can talk to us and open up, sharing their feelings and worries.
• We support our pupils to build and maintain positive social relationships with others.

  Mental Health Policy

  Mental Health and Pastoral Intent Statement

Nurturing good mental health and wellbeing

Combining ELSA, trauma-informed and attachment aware training, we are able to offer emotional health and wellbeing sessions. Through these, children are able to explore and develop emotional awareness and understanding, have guidance on finding strategies to self-regulate more effectively, build self-esteem, better recognise signs of strong emotions, develop social and friendship skills, or have support for loss, bereavement or other adverse experiences.

5 Ways to Wellbeing

There are 5 ways to well-being outlined by the NHS. The aim is that you complete something for each of the 5 categories each day. 

Connect

Connect with people around you. With family, friends, colleagues, and neighbours. At home, work, school, or in your local community. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.

Be Active

Swap your interactive pursuits with active ones. Go for a walk. Step outside. Cycle. Play a game. Garden. Dance. Walk or cycle when making short journeys. Being active makes you feel good. Most importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy and that suits your level of mobility and fitness.

Why not have a go at some of the activities below? 

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-fitness-studio/bedtime-mediation/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-fitness-studio/pilates-for-beginners/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-fitness-studio/dance-la-bomba/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-fitness-studio/wake-up-workout/

Take Notice

Be curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Remark on the unusual. Notice the changing seasons. Savour the moment, whether you are walking to work, eating lunch, or talking to friends. Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Reflecting on your experiences will help you to appreciate what matters to you.

Keep Learning

Try something new. Rediscover an old interest. Sign up for that course. Take on a different responsibility at work. Fix a bike. Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food. Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving. Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun.

Give!

Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Thank someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Join a community group. Look out, as well as in. Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with the people around you. 

Statement of Mental Health Intent

Dronfield Junior School Inclusion Team is passionate about making a difference to the lives of our pupils. We believe in teamwork; working with each other, with teachers and colleagues across the school, with the wider school community and most importantly with the pupils in our school. We act with an unrelenting commitment to developing a sense of belonging. Whatever issues our pupils, their families, the school, our team or the community face, we always support, react and pull together. Finally, we are committed to making a difference; we are not passive players in pupils’ lives but active participants who can, and do, make a real difference. We encourage our staff and pupils to relate well to one another with respect, curiosity and honesty. These are a reflection of the school’s curriculum intent statement and core values, in particular:

Respect and Resilience, Excellence, Autonomy, Curiosity and Honesty (REACH)

Our moral purpose can therefore be summarised below -

• Team work
• Commitment
• Belonging
• Respect

What Inclusion and Effective Mental Health Interventions Means to Us

• The child stays at the centre of every conversation.
• We prioritise those who need our help most, but we intervene with all.
• When pupils are in school, we can support and educate them – attendance matters.
• Pupils learn best when there are clear rules and simple consequences.
• Staff teach best when there are clear rules and simple consequences.
• We use evidence-based practice for all our interventions.

Expectations of Each Other

• Have read and understood Part 1 of Keeping Children Safe in Education.
• Keep up to date with our behaviour, Social, Emotional, Mental Health (SEMH), attendance and safeguarding policies and protocols.
• Attend fortnightly Inclusion Team meetings on time and are prepared
• Ensure wave one pastoral work is evidenced.
• Speak to pupils, staff and each other with courtesy, respect and understanding.

Websites and Apps helpful for managing Mental Health

Here is a list of websites and apps that are helpful for managing mental health (from NHS Midlands Partnership including Derby and Derbyshire NHS):