MENTAL HEALTH AT ST PAUL’s

At St Paul’s we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community (children, staff, governors, parents and carers), and we recognise how important mental health and emotional wellbeing is to our lives in just the same way as physical health.

When children and young people look after their mental health and develop their coping skills it can help them to boost their resilience, self-esteem and confidence. It can also help them learn to manage their emotions, feel calm, and engage positively with their education. Our pupils are taught self-care techniques, including recognising and managing emotions, exercise, relaxation and how to build relationships through a rich and varied curriculum.

Staff wellbeing is of the greatest importance too. We created a Staff Charter and St Paul's Promises to support wellbeing and to ensure staff feel respected, valued and supported.

We use the DfE's guidance, Mental Health and Behaviour in Schools, as a guide to supporting children’s mental health through:

1. Prevention: creating a safe and calm environment where mental health problems are less likely, improving the mental health and wellbeing of the whole school population, and equipping pupils to be resilient so that they can manage the normal stress of life effectively. This will include teaching pupils about mental wellbeing through the curriculum and reinforcing this teaching through school activities and ethos.

2. Identification: recognising emerging issues as early and accurately as possible. 

3. Early support: helping pupils to access evidence based early support and interventions.

4. Access to specialist support: working effectively with external agencies to provide swift access or referrals to specialist support and treatment.