Wellbeing at Waltham Leas

 

At Waltham Leas, we know that there has never been a more important time to focus on children’s mental health and wellbeing. With 1 in 10 children experiencing a mental health issue at any one time, we are proud to say that we place a huge emphasis on ensuring that our children are supported, guided and well informed about mental health issues.

 

We have designed our curriculum so that children have many opportunities to discuss and think through issues and develop strategies to improve wellbeing. This includes during PSHE themes, by developing metacognitive strategies in all lessons and living out our termly values (designed by the children).

 

We educate everyone that wellbeing is all about our holistic health, including the physical and emotional. Children know that when we feel motivated and engaged we’re resilient and able to deal effectively with daily troubles, as well as ’bounce back’ from life’s challenges.

 

Our Personal, Social, Health and Economic education curriculum helps our children to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need in order to be make safe and healthy decisions about their lives. They are taught that developing resilience, empathy, self-esteem and confidence are vital in order to face challenges and responsibilities now and in the future. Within this, the children are taught RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) in an age appropriate and sensitive way.

 

Our termly values, which the school councillors and classes have developed, focus on many of these areas too – Celebrating difference, Respecting every person, Representing our school, Building resilience, Respecting property and Supporting each other.

 

At Waltham Leas, we place a huge emphasis and importance on physical education through high quality PE and School sport. Children are aware that physical activity helps to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to engage in healthy lifestyle choices and has a positive impact on academic achievement, cognitive functioning, behaviour, concentration, self-esteem and attendance. 

We celebrate outside sporting and musical achievements in our weekly assemblies and discuss how these children have motivation and resilience to overcome problems and continue to do their best even when they don’t have success. 

 

As a school, we know that we provide a unique setting for making a real difference to children’s nutrition, eating behaviours and overall wellbeing for later life. We discuss healthy choices within our PSHE curriculum as well as in discussions in class.

 

 

We know that it is important that everyone is given the right emotional and practical support so that they can, in turn, support others within our environment and community. In addition to having a positive impact on colleagues and children, good levels of wellbeing can improve performance and help to reduce absence, increase productivity and promote engagement.

As a school our caring ethos and environment has a major impact on the wellbeing of all 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. 

We have a Wellbeing Team in school made up of the Senior Wellbeing Lead, Pastoral Lead and teaching staff from across the school.

 

Our Pastoral lead supports children through ‘drop in’ sessions, class and year group talks and informal chats to ensure that issues are dealt with quickly and children can begin to develop strategies for dealing with their emotions when needed. She also signposts parents to further help using outside agencies such as Compass Go and FORTIS Therapy. Their individual and group sessions in school have had a positive impact on many children and have helped them to deal with challenging times and situations.

 

As a school we work with the children using a restorative rather than punitive approach to behaviour helping them to reflect on their choices and make better decisions. All staff, including lunchtime staff, have been trained in restorative practice in order that our approach is always consistent and fair.

 

We place great importance on the voice of our pupils and have a very active School Council. They developed our 6 school values alongside their classes, and these are explained, discussed and celebrated each term. Our councillors feedback to their classes after every fortnightly meeting and always remind everyone about sharing their worries with a member of staff or using the Worry Boxes in corridors where children can write down any concerns they have. These are checked by one of our TAs regularly and the class teacher / pastoral lead is informed of any issues.

Each representative brings ideas from their classes to our meetings and we discuss them as a group before they are taken for staff to discuss and make decisions.

 

In every classroom there is a display that focusses on wellbeing and encourages all children to reflect on how they are feeling and what they can do if they feel angry or upset. Their emotional vocabulary is developed as they move up through school.

There is also a nurture area with cushions, blankets and soothing toys that can be accessed when needed.

 

Our Mental Health Lead and Pastoral Lead visit all classrooms termly to check in and work with all children. From these sessions a variety of actions may be taken ranging from a chat to a referral to an appropriate agency.

Wellbeing displays

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