Wellbeing, also known as wellness or quality of life, referring to what is intrinsically valuable relative to a person. The wellbeing of a person is what is ultimately good for a person, what is in the self-interest of a person. Well-being can refer to both positive and negative well-being.

Association of Mental Health in Education

St. Mary’s Catholic First School is proud to be a member of the Association of Mental Health
in Education, supporting, nurturing and growing mental health in the education community.

Peer Mentoring

We are proud to introduce our newly appointed Peer Mentoring Leads, who have successfully completed their peer mentoring training in school. As positive role models within our community, they play a vital part in supporting the well-being, confidence and inclusion of all pupils.

Our Peer Mentoring Leads are trained to:

• Listen to others with empathy and respect
• Help resolve minor friendship issues in a calm and supportive way
• Promote kindness and positive behaviour across the school
• Support younger pupils during playtimes and around school
• Encourage a sense of belonging and help others feel safe and valued

This initiative strengthens our commitment to building a nurturing, pupil‑centred environment where children learn to care for one another, develop leadership skills, and contribute positively to school life.

Our Peer Mentoring Leads are visible around school, offering support to peers and helping to promote a happy and harmonious community. We are extremely proud of their dedication and the maturity they have shown throughout their training.

The Thrive Approach

‘We are a Thrive school’

The Thrive Approach has been developed over many years helping children to flourish. It supports their emotional and social development and helps them feel happy and secure, able to enjoy friendships, relate well to others and be ready and able to learn.

The Thrive Approach Thrive is a specific way of working with all children that helps to develop their social and emotional wellbeing, enabling them to engage with life and learning. It supports them in becoming more self-assured, capable and adaptable. It can also address any troubling behaviours providing a firm foundation for academic attainment.

If you would like some more information about Thrive please speak to our Thrive practitioner, Eleanor Stoves.

Thrive Approach Leaflet

Thrive-Online Parent Toolkit

A FREE toolkit of strategies and activities to help you now!

Thrive have pulled together some hints and tips in this first, FREE release of the Thrive-Online Parent Toolkit. It is specially designed for parents with children aged 4 to 11 years.

The parent toolkit provides:
• Information and an animation explaining the different, age-related stages of a child’s social and emotional development
• Short films showing two families sharing the impact this knowledge of Thrive has had on them
• Hints and tips for looking after yourselves
• Carefully selected, age-appropriate strategies and activities for you to try with your children at home
• A facility for you to expand and personalise the toolkit for you and your children.

Young Carers Bronze Award!

We are proud to announce that our school has achieved the Young Carers Bronze Award: https://youngcarersinschools.com/. This national recognition shows our commitment to supporting pupils who help care for family members. We have put systems in place to identify young carers, listen to their needs, and provide practical and emotional support so they can thrive at school. This award reflects our dedication to ensuring every child has the same opportunities to succeed. Every child deserves the chance to succeed—and we’re making sure that happens! #YoungCarers #SchoolCommunity #Wellbeing

Emotional Health and Mental Wellbeing

At St. Mary’s, we are committed to supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of our pupils. Supporting and promoting wellbeing, building resilience and good mental health will improve outcomes for our children. 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. We know that everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times, anyone may need additional emotional support. 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.

At St Mary’s we take emotional health and mental well-being seriously. Every class provides a wide range of activities that promote emotional health and mental well-being including the daily mile, ‘Let’s Talk’ Boxes, class and team building activities. We have regular PSHE lessons to build on social skills, wellbeing and our school values. There are areas around the school where children can access books and we promote strategies to support and look after our wellbeing and mental health. Children can access ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support) and speak to Mrs Stoves.

To see our latest Wellbeing Policy, please visit our School Policies page by clicking on the link below:

Five Ways to Wellbeing

The Five Ways to Wellbeing are a set of practical actions aimed at improving our mental health and wellbeing. Here at St. Mary’s Catholic First School we are encouraged to think about how often we do these five actions – on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. We think about our lives over the past few days, and when we last:

1. Took real notice of the things around you.
2. Connected with someone important to you or perhaps someone you don’t know.
3. Were physically active.
4. Learned something new.
5. Gave something of value to someone else – this could be in the form of giving your time, or something of material value.

Often, everyday situations can allow us to do more than one of the Five Ways in one go.

Within school we focus upon wellbeing, an area that has been identified by the Government as requiring a raised profile within schools.

As a school we have decided to focus upon the following areas:

Physical Wellbeing – mainly looking at exercise and sleep.

Health Wellbeing – healthy diet and the importance of water.

Mental Wellbeing – managing relationships, feelings and dealing with problems.

Over the year we will look at many different aspects of wellbeing with the children these will include:

• Healthy Packed Lunches
• Sleep
• Water
• Mental Well-being
• Teeth

Wellbeing

• ELSA Emotional Literacy Support 
• Thrive
• Draw and Talk sessions 
• Gardening Club 
• Confidence/Self-esteem groups 
• Circle time 
• PSHE lessons 
• Transition to middle school program (including support from *BE YOU team)

*The Be You team is a mental health support initiative in Northumberland, delivered through a partnership between the NHS and Northumberland County Council. Its purpose is to improve and support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in schools, focusing on early intervention and prevention: https://www.northumbria.nhs.uk/our-services/childrens-services/childrens-mental-health-services/be-you

Other useful websites

• Community CAMHS
• Mind
• NHS Five steps to Wellbeing
• NHS Live Well
• Mental Health
• Place to be
• Mrs Vaughan is our Well-being Governor. Her role is to take the governor lead in understanding issues surrounding the well-being of staff and pupils at St Mary’s.
• This role is another element in the provision that we make towards providing the best outcomes for our pupils and the importance of ensuring staff well-being in this process.

Extra activities within our school

• Our children are kept very active taking part in a variety of after school clubs, designed to give them a range of experiences, encourage active lifestyles, and keep them fit!
• We change our clubs regularly to cover a wide range of sport, and this has included football, rugby, athletics, gymnastics, hula hooping, dancing, multisport, skipping…the list goes on.
• As well as a wide range of after school club activities we also have an annual ‘Health Week’ which includes a full week of learning about being healthy, trying new activities and having so much fun!
• We also have school sports teams that are involved in sporting festivals organised throughout the year. This includes: A teddy bears’ picnic with games included, skipping festival, multi-sports, Tag-rugby, hockey, tennis and athletics to name a few!

Recommended Reads

Here are some recommended books for children that focus on the importance of looking after our mental health & wellbeing:

Useful Apps & Websites:

You can help children to use the Sesame Street App: “Breathe, Think, Do” strategy to help children to calm down, identify their feelings, and work to solve their problem!

The Good Things App

Safespot