Mental health and wellbeing

We believe that paying more attention to the present moment – to your own thoughts and feelings, and to the world around you.

This can improve your mental wellbeing. This awareness is known as "mindfulness".

Why is  'mindfulness' important ?

Mindfulness can help us to enjoy life more and understand ourselves better. It is proven to improve a child's ability to focus and can be a great help in times of stress when used as a way to calm down.We believe well being is all about our holistic health including physical and emotional.

At Milton Park, we are committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of our pupils and staff to ensure that the school is a community where everyone feels able to thrive. Positive mental wellbeing is essential if children and young people are to flourish and lead fulfilling lives.

At our school, we know that everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times anyone may need additional emotional support. We take the view that positive mental health is everybody’s business and that we all have a role to play. 

What does research say ?

Over 50% of mental illnesses start before the age of 14 and 1 in 10 children and young people has a mental health disorder (Public Mental Health, 2014). Recent survey results found that 12.5% (one in eight) of 5 to 19 year olds, surveyed in England in 2017, had a mental disorder (NHS, 2017). 

“Mental health is a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community,” (World Health Organization, 2014).

What do 'mindfulness' lessons look like ?

Two key elements to support good mental health are:

• Feeling Good – experiencing positive emotions like happiness, contentment and enjoyment. Including feelings like curiosity, engagement and safety.
• Functioning Well – how a person is able to function in the world, this includes positive relationships and social connections, as well as feeling in control of your life and having a sense of purpose.

Our role in school is to ensure that children are able to manage times of change and stress, and that they are supported to reach their potential or access help when they need it. Children are taught when to seek help, what help is available, and the likely outcome of seeking support so that they have the confidence and knowledge for themselves or others. We also have a role to ensure that children learn about what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what affects their mental health and how they can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues. As part of our targeted provision, we have and continue to access, outside help and support for pupils when required.

At Milton Park , we believe that teaching about mental health and emotional wellbeing as part of a comprehensive PSHE and Emotional Literacy  curriculum is vital. PSHE and Emotional Literacy are central to the curriculum across the whole school and assists pupils to cope with the changes at puberty, introduces them to a wider world, manage transitions and enables them to make an active contribution to their communities. The concepts covered in PSHE include keeping safe and managing risk, identity, equality, managing feelings and emotions, relationships, change, resilience and being healthy, which includes physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. We aim to promote pupils’ wellbeing through an understanding of their own and others’ emotions and the development of healthy coping strategies.

We include World Mental Health Day and Mental Health Awareness Week in the school calendar and plan activities for the whole school.

Levels of support

• Universal Support– To meet the needs of all our pupils through our overall ethos, school values and our wider curriculum. For instance, developing resilience, respect and responsibility all.
• Additional support– For those who may have short term needs and those who may have been made vulnerable by life experiences such as separation or bereavement. Our pastoral team are very skilled and trained in providing targeted interventions for individuals. 
• Targeted support– For pupils who need more specialists  support and resources  referral to wider professionals is available. 

Bullying

Several Times On Purpose (STOP).

We want all children, regardless of their individual circumstances, to be happy, confident and successful. In order to fully achieve this vision, we need children to feel safe and secure both in our school and in the wider community. We want children to feel as though they can talk about their emotions and come to us to express concerns or worries, no matter how small they may perceive them to be.

Working as part of a collective school team, including parents and the wider community, we want to equip children with the necessary skills to prevent and deal with harmful or challenging situations using restorative practices.

By teaching our children this knowledge and capability, we instil in them the power to become not only happy, confident and successful children but happy, confident and successful adults too.

If children are happy, safe and secure in their school environment, this will have an impact on staff well-being and children’s learning. Our behaviour  policy aims to set out our whole school approach to anti-bullying including how to monitor, record and report situations and incidents to achieve our ultimate goal: to prevent bullying behaviour. It is imperative that all members of staff, parents and governors have a clear understanding of this  to ensure consistency throughout the school and across the community. Bullying is everyone’s business.

Bullying is the deliberate, pre-meditated and REPEATED physical verbal or emotional assault of an individual or group, by a single person or group. 

What should you do if you think your child is being bullied?

Parents who believe their child has been harmed as a result of bullying, or believes their child is harming others, should share their concerns with the school at the earliest opportunity and be prepared to work with the school to keep the children safe. The first port of call should be to contact the class teacher. All expressions of concern will be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly and, if there is a concern regarding incidents of bullying, this will be shared with the Headteacher or Deputy Headteacher and safeguarding team. Support will be provided by the pastoral team. Should parents still be concerned, contact should be made with the Headteacher or the Deputy Headteacher.