Mental Health & Emotional Wellbeing at The Elizabethan Academy

Supporting and improving everyone’s emotional wellbeing and mental health is a driving force for us at the Elizabethan Academy. We know every individual in our school community – our staff, students and their families – so that we can value, understand and care for each other to be a school and employer of first choice. We celebrate successes together and work through our difficulties together. This is our supportive culture which develops the strength of character and self-confidence we need to thrive and maximise our opportunities and achievements.

It is widely recognised that a student’s emotional health and wellbeing influences their cognitive development and learning, as well as their physical and social health and their mental wellbeing in adulthood. The Department for Education recognises that, in order to help their students succeed: schools have a role to play in supporting them to be resilient and mentally healthy.

At The Elizabethan Academy, we are changing the culture associated with mental health and wellbeing. Our ethos is that mental health is the responsibility of us all. We aim to promote positive mental health for every child, member of staff and their families.  We keep our approach under regular review and utilise a variety of approaches to achieve this end.

Working with All Parents and Carers and Families

We also want to work with our families to support their children’s emotional and mental health. We will:

• Highlight sources of information and support about common mental health issues on our school website.
• Ensure that all parents are aware of who they can to talk to, and how to get the support they need if they have concerns about their own child or a friend of their child.
• Make our policies easily accessible to parents.
• Share ideas about how parents can support positive mental health in their children through our regular review meetings.
• Keep parents informed about the mental health topics their children are learning about in PSHEC and share ideas for extending and exploring this learning at home.

Staff 

We provide all our staff with training opportunities to provide a more in-depth knowledge on both students and their own mental health and wellbeing. This ensures our staff are equipped to fully support our students. We also hold regular twilight training sessions for all staff which promote learning or understanding about specific issues and include mental health and wellbeing.

Staff should access our internal resources on wellbeing for further information or speak with our HR Manager.

Staff Training and CPD

As a minimum, all staff will receive regular training about recognising and responding to mental health issues as part of their regular child protection training in order to enable them to keep students safe. We also provide access to a virtual learning environment for staff who wish to learn more about mental health through The National College.

The MindEd www.minded.org.uk learning portal also provides free online training suitable for staff wishing to know more about a specific issue.

Wellbeing award for schools

In July 2022 we were delighted to be awarded the Wellbeing Award for Schools in recognition of our work towards the wellbeing of our students, their parents and our staff.

The main objectives of the Wellbeing Award

The award has a focus on changing the long-term culture of a school, and embedding an ethos where mental health is regarded as the responsibility of all.

With this award, we can:

• Show their commitment to promoting mental health as part of school life
• Improve the emotional wellbeing of their staff and pupils
• Ensure mental health problems are identified early and appropriate support provided
• Offer provision and interventions that matches the needs of its pupils and staff
• Engage the whole-school community in the importance of mental health awareness
• Capture the views of parents, pupils and teachers on mental health issues