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.

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 
• Draw and Talk sessions 
• Gardening Club 
• Confidence/Self-esteem groups 
• Circle time 
• PSHE lessons 
• Transition to middle school program 

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