Hindley Junior & Infant School

Argyle Street, Hindley, Wigan, Lancashire WN2 3PN 01942 255339 07759 969879
enquiries@admin.hindley.wigan.sch.uk

Mental Health & Wellbeing

At Hindley J&I, 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. All children go through ups and downs during their school career and some face significant life events.

The Department for Education (DfE) recognises that: “in order to help their children succeed; schools have a role to play in supporting them to be resilient and mentally healthy”. Schools can be a place for children and young people to experience a nurturing and supportive environment that has the potential to develop self-esteem and give positive experiences for overcoming adversity and building resilience. For some, school will be a place of respite from difficult home lives and offer positive role models and relationships, which are critical in promoting children’s wellbeing and can help create a sense of belonging and community.

Our role in school is to ensure that our 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 our children learn about what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what affects 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.
We actively promote the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ as evidence suggests there are 5 steps you can take to help improve your mental health and wellbeing, these are connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give.

Connect - Spend time developing and nurturing relationships with friends, family, neighbours and colleagues.
Be active - Try to find an activity that you enjoy, and that keeps you active, such as walking, swimming, cycling or playing football. Evidence shows that an improvement in your physical health can help improve your mental health.
Keep learning - Learning new skills can boost confidence and give you a sense of achievement.
Give - Helping others, saying thank you, or giving someone a smile can help to improve your self-esteem and improve your emotional health..
Take notice - Being more aware of the present moment, the world around you and your own feelings and thoughts, can help you to positively change how you're feeling about life. The NHS has created a mood self-assessment questionnaire designed to recommend ways and resources to help you better understand how you feel.
Click the link to watch videos explaining the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ further.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjtM1b0a5zTC8AbTpgMKmoFIw2lw73KFN
Our aim at school is to help develop the protective factors which build resilience to mental health problems and to be a school where:

All children are valued.
Children have a sense of belonging and feel safe.
Children feel able to talk openly with trusted adults about their problems without feeling any stigma.
Positive mental health is promoted and valued.
Bullying is not tolerated.

We believe it is important for pupils to have a voice, be able to contribute ideas and influence how to improve the wellbeing of their peers across the school. To help foster peer to peer level support, we have recruited a group of Wellbeing Champions from Years 5 and 6 whom work closely with Mrs Powers, our school Mental Health Lead, to help drive forward positive change and support for the whole school community.

Our Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy can be found on our Policy pager, click here to be redirected.

The role of our wellbeing champion is to help promote positive mental health, encourage open and honest conversations about understanding mental health and share strategies for wellbeing. Our Wellbeing Champions can provide support and guidance to pupils and create an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding within the school. We feel that this is essential to create a positive whole-school approach to wellbeing.
Peer support is an effective way of improving wellbeing amongst children, giving them someone who will listen when they may feel unable to go to an adult with their worries or concerns. Scientific research has demonstrated that accessing the support of peers can boost resilience and wellbeing for children and young people, which is an essential component in fostering emotional health. Better resilience translates to better mental wellbeing and protects against the onset of mental health problems.

Please see the minutes from our meetings below:

Emotional Friendly Schools Award Accreditation
We are currently in the process of applying to achieve an Emotionally Friendly School Status.

The Emotionally Friendly Schools (EFS) programme is a flexible, whole-school approach to improving children's mental health and well-being. By adopting a whole school approach, we can ensure that wellbeing is central to everything that we do.
The accreditation focuses on four key areas:

Staff Wellbeing and School Ethos
Classroom Practice
Assessing Children's Needs
Supporting Individual Children

At Hindley junior and Infant School, we endeavour to support the wellbeing of both staff and pupils. We aim to ensure that all children are happy, healthy and able to cope with everything that life may throw at them. We promote and teach all pupils to be resilient, confident, have positive self-perceptions and appropriate coping mechanisms in a seamless and continuous method of delivery.
As adults, we ensure that we develop our understanding of emotions, self-control, positive relationships and keeping our mind and body healthy, in order to support our wellbeing and therefore we can have the best impact upon the pupils we support. We recognise, however, that the mental wellbeing of both staff and pupils can change from day to day and that there are times in everybody's life when a little extra help or support may be needed.
As a school we also seek advice and support from many external support agencies and services: CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service), School Nurse, Speech and Language Therapists, Paediatricians, the Primary Inclusion Team, the Educational Psychology Service, and we. This helps to ensure that each individual receives the most rounded care possible.
Our Emotional Friendly Setting team is made up of the following staff in school: Mrs Powers, Miss McKeever, Mrs Jones, Mrs Grioli and Mr Wallace.

Additional Support Services
Follow the links below for support with mental health and wellbeing.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2021/09/03/mental-health-resources-for-children-parents-carers-and-school-staff/

Additional Support Services
Follow the links below for support with mental health and wellbeing.

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