Mental Health & Wellbeing
At Sudley Primary School, we aim to promote the positive mental health and wellbeing of our whole school community - children, parents/carers, staff and governors. We recognise the impact of mental health and well-being on our whole lives. We recognise that children's mental health is a crucial factor in determining their overall wellbeing and affects their ability to learn, develop and achieve.
Our role at Sudley Primary School is to ensure that our children are able to manage times of change and stress and are supported in accessing help when they need it. We also aim to ensure that all children learn about what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what affects their mental health, how they can reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and who and where they can go to, if they need help and support.
With such a huge amount of time spent in the classroom, schools provide an ideal environment for promoting good emotional wellbeing and identifying early behaviour changes and signs of mental distress. The social and emotional skills, knowledge and behaviours that young people learn in the classroom can help them to build resilience and set the pattern for how they will manage their mental health throughout their lives. Emotional wellbeing is a clear indicator of academic achievement, success and satisfaction in later life. Evidence shows that mental health and wellbeing programmes in schools, can lead to significant improvements in children’s mental health, and social and emotional skills. Wellbeing provision in schools can also lead to reductions in classroom misbehaviour and bullying.
At Sudley Primary School we take emotional health and mental wellbeing very seriously. We provide a wide range of activities that promote emotional health and mental wellbeing. Our aim is to build pupils’ confidence, resilience and knowledge so that they can keep themselves mentally healthy and provide our pupils with an understanding of how to keep physically healthy, eat healthily and maintain an active lifestyle, including giving ample opportunities for pupils to be active during the school day and through extra-curricular activities.
We are aware that mental health difficulties can be extremely hard to talk about but urge you to speak to someone if you or your child need any support.
Useful websites to support your child with mental health and wellbeing:
https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/for-parents/
https://www.annafreud.org/parents-and-carers/
https://parentingsmart.place2be.org.uk/
https://www.liverpoolcamhs.com/
ROAR Response
What is the Roar Response Programme?
Childhood should be a carefree, fun time, but sometimes children and young people face emotional and even traumatic experiences that may be related to school and educational situations. Being expected to deal with problems and challenges life presents can become quite overwhelming for some, leading to anxiety, stress and even depression. We can’t control life’s situations, but being able to thrive despite these challenges comes from having strong skills of resilience.
The ROAR Response to Mental Health in Primary Schools is a tool which aims to help staff recognise and address the signs of mental health problems in children. It is a first line response aimed at equipping front line professionals with the tools to provide early intervention, and support to children experiencing mental distress.
The ROAR response also recognises the importance of building resilience in children.
What does ROAR stand for?
R - Recognise the signs and symptoms
O - Ask Open questions (try to spot the BIG thought)
A - Access Support, Services and Self-care
R - Build Resilience
ROAR helps the children in our school to talk about their mental health and feelings.
Roar Response Guide for Parents & Carers
