Wellbeing and Pastoral Support
Wellbeing and Pastoral Support at Broadheath Primary
‘A child’s mental health is just as important as their physical health, and deserves the same quality of support’
HRH, Catherine, Princess of Wales
Intent
At Broadheath Primary, mental health and well-being of pupils, staff and our school community is at the forefront of everything we do. Strong pastoral care understands the importance of keeping a child’s needs at the core of everything. Our aim is for all to be happy and feel safe in their learning environment, with a caring, listening and supportive approach ensuring everyone’s voice is heard.
Implementation
Our highly experienced and passionate pastoral team, provide high quality support for our children, families and staff. Staff ensure pupils feel comfortable talking to a key adult, and have a clear understanding of the importance of building relationships. Through whole school approaches such as Emotion Coaching and Zones of Regulation alongside tailored interventions to meet the needs of individuals, all children have the opportunity to be the best version of themselves. Throughout lunchtime, we offer ‘The Club That Cares.’ This is an informal well-being drop in intervention, where children can come and talk to our Pastoral Lead, Miss Thomson, allowing them to share any worries or concerns they may have.
Here at Broadheath Primary, we are extremely fortunate to have external agencies who support mental health and well being through a counsellor and an Art Therapist. This targeted support is designed to enhance pupils’ ability to understand and express their feelings and emotions. These sessions can take place on a one-to-one basis or in a group. Pupils will have the opportunity to experience and explore themes such as expressing emotions, friendship, and managing worries. Through this approach, we hope to foster essential skills for emotional, social development and personal growth in children.
Ongoing reflection of need, allows school to adapt practices where necessary to offer the best support to our school community.
Impact
Having such a strong focus on mental health and well-being continues to have a positive effect on behaviour and learning throughout the school. More families are approaching school for support and building those trusted relationships.
For information about our PSHE curriculum, please click here.
Operation Encompass
Our school is part of a project, which is run between Trafford Local Authority, schools and Greater Manchester Police. The project, called Operation Encompass, has been designed to provide early reporting of any domestic abuse incidents that occur outside school, which might have an impact on a child in school. This is communicated through a secure email to school following an incident.
The project ensures that at least one member of the school staff, sometimes referred to as ‘the key adult’, is available to liaise with children’s services and the police and to use the information that has been shared, in confidence. In this way, we aim to support each child who has been involved in, or witnessed, a domestic abuse incident. The Key Adults at Broadheath Primary School are Mr Donnelly, Mrs Lyde and Miss Boyer.
If s/he receives an Encompass notification they will make sure that a person the child trusts is available to help – if the child needs this. Most of the time this support is silent; keeping a careful eye on him or her and making sure the child has a calm school day. The confidential information is ordinarily not shared with all staff, just an agreement on how to help, if needed.
All schools have a duty to share any information with other organisations if they feel a child is at risk of being hurt. The Key Adult may contact other organisations. The sharing of information from the police allows the school to be ready to help your child straight away, and it means that parents are aware that the Key Adult knows that something has happened. Parents can come and talk to our Key Adult. The Key Adult can point you toward other people that can help.
Our aim is to support children and their families.
Miss Thomson – Pastoral Lead
Mrs Bennett – Pastoral Support
Useful Links:
Solihull Approach (parenting support)
https://www.trafforddirectory.co.uk/
Early Help (whole family support)
https://www.trafforddirectory.co.uk/
Trafford Sleep services
https://www.trafforddirectory.co.uk/
Child Bereavement UK
https://www.childbereavementuk.org/
Physical chastisement – the law on smacking children