Mental Health and Wellbeing at St John's
At St John’s C of E Academy, we 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. This is why our Relationships and Health Education (RHE) curriculum and our themed curriculums all have mental health and wellbeing threaded through. Taught to the children both explicitly and implicitly through other aspects of their learning, all underpinned by our school values and our motto of 'I will shine!'
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.
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Keep reading!
More information about wellbeing and resources to support can be found below.
Our role in school is to ensure that 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 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. Our aim is to help develop the protective factors which build resilience to mental health problems.
SEND and Wellbeing Newsletters
Wellbeing activities
Here at St John's we offer a wide range of activities to support our whole school family with mental health and wellbeing.
As well as wellbeing and mental health being a focus in our curriculum, we also add extra wellbeing activity sessions in for each year group. Each session has a specific wellbeing focus and a craft activity linked. The children have time to relax and chat, as do the staff, who also take part with the children, but the sessions are led by our amazing parent helpers. Wellbeing all round!
Outdoor Learning
Outdoor learning for Year 1 and 2, although linked to the National Curriculum, the emphasis is around the children engaging with nature and the outdoors, exploring their senses and developing their vocabulary through the experiences. See our Outdoor Learning page!
Wellbeing for our families
Resources for families to support with mental health and wellbeing
Staff mental health and wellbeing
Our staff's mental health and wellbeing is extremely important to us. We are constantly striving for ways to support their wellbeing, reduce workload and support their life / work balance to enable all members of the St John's community to flourish.
St John's Pointless Christmas Wellbeing Quiz!!
