Mental Health & Wellbeing
Looking after our Mental Health:
Mental health is all about the wellbeing of the mind. It’s all just a little bit of word play. As you know we all have mental health, and this isn’t a bad thing! It’s about how you maintain it.
At George Spicer, we believe that the wellbeing of our children’s hearts and minds are just as important as their physical wellbeing. When children don’t feel well in their body, we tend to know immediately what could help, whether that’s giving our children rest, medication, or taking them to see a doctor. We try to think about our children’s minds in a similar way. That is, when they are show signs of difficulty or distress, to think with parents, families and other professionals about ways to help them.
As a Rights Respecting School, it is our responsibility to work towards achieving what is best for each child (UNCRC Article 3). For us, that means making sure that we support and nurture each pupil to be ready to learn and work towards achieving their potential, in whatever way is best for them as an individual.
Talking about Mental Health:
"What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor more unashamed conversation."
Feeling unsure about talking about Mental Health? Watch Break the Stigma.
At George Spicer, we feel we have an important role to play in helping our pupils to develop their emotional and mental wellbeing and developing a growth mind-set. We talk about and promote positive mental health, as we believe this can contribute towards improving a range of outcomes for our pupils, including attitudes to learning and better attendance. This is supported by our ethos “Growing to Succeed” and our school values: Respect, Responsibility and Perseverance. We achieve this through:
Our Curriculum:
Our whole school half-termly wellbeing themes; weekly PSHE lessons; circle times; worry boxes for children to share their worries and fears; assemblies and promotion of children’s rights, all focus on supporting our pupils to develop the qualities, skills and attributes they need to thrive as individuals, family members and members of society, now and in the future.
"A Child's mental health is just as important as their physical health and deserves the same quality of support. No one would feel embarrassed about seeking help for a child if they broke their arm - - and we really should be equally ready to support a child coping with emotional difficulties."
Our Staff Support:
At George Spicer, we care about your child’s mental health and wellbeing. All of our staff focus on promoting wellbeing, modelling positive relationships and supporting our pupils to take care of themselves and others. We encourage our pupils’ right to have their voices heard (UNCRC Article 12) and provide them with a space to speak. We recognise the importance of providing appropriate support when children are struggling and so provide specialised help from:
Our Learning Mentors:
This amazing team supports the wellbeing of our whole school community! They support our pupils’ wellbeing through social and emotional support, 1:1 or group focus sessions on dealing with conflict, recognising emotions, friendship, bereavement support, mental health first aid – whatever meets the needs of our pupils.
They also signpost parents/carers to appropriate agencies for help with housing, finances, family conflict, bereavement support etc and are always available with a listening ear!
Mrs Masini
Learning Mentor
Mrs Brown
Learning Mentor
Mrs Dargin
Learning Mentor
Our School’s Wellbeing Practitioners:
Victoria and Clare are our new School Wellbeing Practitioners who work with our children, their families and the staff at George Spicer. They are part of the new Enfield Mental Health Support Team in Schools, created as part of the Government’s national transformation programme. Their aim is "to increase emotional wellbeing and mental health support to children and young people experiencing mild to moderate emotional difficulties in school, such as anxiety, behaviour or friendship issues" (Department of Health & Department for Education, 2017). Victoria & Clare support our whole school approach to wellbeing, providing workshops and group sessions to children, parents and staff to promote mental health and wellbeing across the school community. They work in partnership with school staff and offer additional support as required, to best meet the needs of our pupils.
Clare
Victoria
If you’d like any more information about our school mental health support, please ask to speak to Mr Spong, our Mental Health Lead.
Please find further resources to support both children and adults’ wellbeing, mental and physical health on the following pages:
