Mental Health and Wellbeing
Ambition
Our children’s emotional Well-Being is extremely important to us here at West Road. Our aim is to empower our children the tools that they need to cope with a range of feelings. We want West Road children to be successful, resilient learners, but it is equally important to us is that they are healthy and content children, both mentally and physically, and are able to approach any challenge with positivity.
Wellbeing
An overall sense of wellness will not be achieved without having a balance in these key elements:
- Physical. This includes lifestyle choices that affect the functioning of our bodies. What we eat and how active we are will affect our physical wellbeing.
- Emotional or psychological. This is our ability to cope with everyday life and reflects how we think and feel about ourselves.
- Social. This is the extent that we feel a sense of belonging and social inclusion. The way we communicate with others, our relationships, values, beliefs, lifestyles and traditions are all important factors of social wellbeing.
- Spiritual. This is the ability to experience and integrate meaning and purpose in life. Achieved through being connected to our inner self, to nature or even a greater power.
- Intellectual. It is important to gain and maintain intellectual wellness as it helps us to expand our knowledge and skills in order to live an enjoyable and successful life.
- Economic. Economic wellness, in short, is our ability to meet our basic needs and feel a sense of security.
It is about our thoughts, feelings, emotions and ability to react to life. Even when we are met with a challenge, good wellbeing gives us the ability to cope. Sometimes our wellbeing is affected by daily pressures and sudden changes in our lives, such as: an illness, family situations and changes to our normal day to day routines like schooling which we experienced in the Pandemic.
When our wellbeing is affected we find our feelings can get out of control, which will lead to sudden spurges of, sadness, anger, depression and we find that we cannot cope with normal daily routines.
Our Senior Mental Health and Well-being lead is Miss Northwood.
Our pupil wellbeing ambassadors are….
The Department for Education acknowledges that in order to help pupils succeed, schools have an important role to play in supporting them to be resilient and mentally healthy.
Being mentally healthy during childhood means reaching developmental and emotional milestones and learning healthy social skills and how to cope when there are problems. Mentally healthy children have a positive quality of life and can function well at home, in school, and in their communities.
Our Aims
- To ensure that through the promotion of positive emotional health and wellbeing, children are helped to understand and express their feelings, build their confidence and emotional resilience and therefore their capacity to learn.
- To increase the awareness and understanding and reduce stigma amongst children, staff and parents/carers of issues involving the emotional health and wellbeing of young people and to provide support at an early stage to anyone who is or appears to be suffering from mental health issues.
Here at West Road, we celebrate and acknowledge Children’s Mental Health by coming together at different times of the year.
We celebrate:
- Hello Yellow Day in October
- Children’s Mental Wellbeing Week in February
Throughout the school week, children have many opportunities to talk about how they are feeling and any worries they may have. This can be expressed through PSHE time, play, Art, PE and a variety of other ways through children’s everyday learning.
Click on the links below to find useful supporting documents and activities as well as links to websites to help support our work towards keeping our children’s minds healthy and supporting parents.
Children’s Mental Health Week 2023 will take place from 6-12 February 2023. This year’s theme is Let’s Connect.
Let’s Connect is about making meaningful connections. People thrive in communities, and this connection is vital for our wellbeing. When we have healthy connections – to family, friends and others – this can support our mental health and our sense of wellbeing.
For Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, we’re encouraging people to connect with others in healthy, rewarding and meaningful ways.
Click the videos below to see some of the different songs that we use in school to help learn our times tables.
