Health and Wellbeing
At East Sheen Primary School, our school vision begins with 'Our purpose is to nurture happy, confident children...' Why is this so important? Because we know that children succeed in an environment where they feel safe, happy and enthused to engage with learning.
Wellbeing has always been important to us, whether that is through being a Sing Up! Gold Award school, our focus on using our positive, relationship-based behaviour strategy, or outreach from our specialist team from The Phoenix Room. In 2018, the school gained the Wellbeing Award for Schools, recognising the importance the school places on effective, embedded practices to ensure pupil and staff wellbeing is prioritised. In 2022/23, we proudly received the Bronze Award for being an Attachment Aware school.
This is a school where happy pupils are supported by highly trained, happy staff to succeed well and develop as confident individuals who think deeply about themselves and others.
We understand the need for everyone in our school community to have a healthy lifestyle. This helps pupils, staff and families to do their best and build on their achievements. We know that children do their best when they feel safe to take risks, ask for help and are able to succeed without undue pressure.
We actively encourage physical and emotional health, and aim to equip pupils with the understanding and skills they need to make informed decisions about their health, both now and in the future. We appreciate that at some point in our lives we all experience difficulties which can make us vulnerable, therefore through our ethos, curriculum, understanding of Zones of Regulation, Attachment Aware ethos, Thinking School tools (including habits of mind, thinking hats and maps), singing, sport and interventions we:
- help children to understand their emotions and feelings better
- help children feel comfortable sharing any concerns or worries
- help children socially to form and maintain relationships
- promote self-esteem and ensure children know that they count
- encourage children to be confident and ‘dare to be different’
- help children to develop emotional resilience
All children are given the opportunity to talk and forming good relationships is at the centre of our teaching. Language is displayed and modelled to help children express their emotions. Zones of Regulation and The Habits of Mind provide a common language throughout school and help children understand the importance of feelings, of reflecting and of the need for resilience.
Children learn four key words from our school vision: Happy, Curious, Resilient and Kind. Children are taught that we all make mistakes, but these are learning opportunities. Children work regularly with partners or in groups as well as independently. Children and adults also use the Zones of Regulation to help talk about and understand their emotions.
Children are encouraged to keep fit and healthy through the curriculum lessons and also by engaging with physical brain breaks and by running our Phoenix Mile, which is printed around the perimeter of the school.
We are very lucky to have well-established links with Richmond’s Mental Health Support Team. The brilliant team work onsite weekly with the children, parents/carers and staff depending on need. In 2023-24, they have worked closely with many of our families, individual and small groups of children, as well as running in-person and online workshops for parents in their series of ‘Helping children with….’ webinars. They have covered a range of common difficulties experienced by children and have shared evidence-based strategies to help parents/carers support their children. During staff INSET sessions, the MHST have worked with staff on how they can best support students if they are suffering with their mental health. This has provided staff with invaluable tools to support students in line with our ongoing commitment of being an Attachment Aware school.
Mental Health Awareness Week
We celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week in May 2024 across the whole school to promote the importance of looking after our own mental health through ‘movement’. All classes completed various activities every day, such as ‘check-in’ bingo with their classmates; a class ‘move-it’ calendar (which focused on activities ranging from yoga/breathwork to dancing); as well as partaking in Random Acts of Kindness for their classmates.
Following on from feedback from the school’s Green Team, children were invited to attend an Eco-anxiety workshop, where they looked at ways they can minimise any anxiety they may feel surrounding these issues by, for example, encouraging constructive conversations around positive steps which are being made on a local, national and global scale; and empowering the children by reminding them of that they are already making a difference by recycling, engaging in these conversations and travelling to school by foot. The emphasis of the workshop was to highlight and celebrate actions that have been taken already and the impact that these have.
Later in the summer term, we will also be holding a fortnight of ‘Outdoor Learning’, which will promote the importance of being outside and will include a wide range of outdoor learning opportunities.
The links below will take you to sites which offer advice on maintaining positive mental health: