The emotional health and wellbeing of all members of Catchgate School (including staff, students and parents) is fundamental to our philosophy and ethos of valuing everyone, caring for each other and achieving excellence. At Catchgate we work together as a school community, staff, students and parents in a supportive, success minded and challenging environment to maximise opportunities and achievements for all.
We have focused on changing the long-term culture of our school and embedding an ethos where mental health is regarded as the responsibility of all, through embedding wellbeing into every aspect of our school and we will continue to do so, involving everyone. Catchgate work hard to promote and develop the mental health and resilience of our staff, children, parents and carers, linking to Article 24- every child has the right to the best possible health.
Our main areas for a whole school approach
- Promote a positive outlook regarding pupils mental health and wellbeing.
- Eliminate prejudice towards pupils with mental health problems.
- Promote equal opportunities for all pupils.
- Ensure all cases of pupils with mental health issues are identified and appropriately supported.
Promoting positive emotional health and wellbeing
The culture at Catchgate School promotes children’s’ positive emotional health and wellbeing and avoids stigma by:
- Having a whole-school approach to promoting positive emotional health and wellbeing within an ethos of high expectations and constant support.
- Having a full time counsellor in school for children, staff and parents.
- Having a committed staff community that sets a whole school culture of positive emotional health and wellbeing, support and value.
- Having a robust regime of continuing professional development (CPD) for staff.
- Having a working party involving children, staff, governors and parents.
- Working closely with children, staff, parents and carers.
- Zippy and Apple’s Friends and SEAL completed on a weekly basis teaching skills to develop wellbeing and resilience.
- Whole school promotion of building individual resilience and tenacity through the use of a range of activities implemented through our curriculum.
- Staff have all had whole school training based on active listening, mental health amongst children and staff and promoting emotional wellbeing amongst everyone.
- Staff have all had CPD relating to emotional wellbeing and mental health.
- Mental Health First Aiders.
- There is a staff wellbeing and children wellbeing warrior team who meet up half termly- money for resources raised.
- Shout out boxes, suggestion boxes, supervision, raffles, wellbeing board, staff wellbeing nights.
- Wellbeing policy for both children and staff.
- Opportunity to base appraisals on mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Impact
- Children understand their emotions now and are learning how to deal with them in an appropriate way –”golden solution”.
- Staff and children are more willing to talk about their feelings and mental health openly.
- The I’d like To Talk Box and drop in sessions used a lot more because children and staff know it’s okay to not be okay.
- Staff and children’s resilience has improved as they address upcoming problems and issues sooner (boxes, drop in sessions).
- Relationships between parents and children have strengthened.
- Children are getting better at being able to identify their own feelings and come up with positive coping strategies, which are relevant to them.
- Parents communicate with staff and children.
For more information, photos and Catchgate’s work in action, please go on to their school website where there is a whole section on Wellbeing and Mental Health.