At Painters Ash Primary School, we are committed to supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of our pupils and staff.

We have a supportive and caring ethos and our approach is respectful and kind, where each individual and contribution is valued.

We know that everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times anyone may need additional emotional support. We take the view that positive mental health is everybody’s business and that we all have a role to play.

At our school we:

• help children to understand their emotions and feelings better
• help children feel comfortable sharing any concerns or worries
• help children socially to form and maintain relationships.
• promote self-esteem and ensure children know that they count.
• encourage children to be confident and ‘dare to be different’
• help children to develop emotional resilience and to manage setbacks.

We promote a mentally healthy environment through:

• Promoting our school values and encouraging a sense of belonging
• Promoting Pupil Voice and opportunities to participate in decision-making
• Celebrating academic and non-academic achievements
• Providing opportunities to develop a sense of worth through taking responsibility for themselves and others
• Providing opportunities to reflect
• Access to appropriate support that meets their needs
• Feeling check ins

The skills, knowledge and understanding needed by our students to keep themselves mentally healthy and safe are included as part of our developmental PSHE curriculum.

The specific content of lessons will be determined by the specific needs of the cohort we are teaching but we also use the Jigsaw scheme to ensure that we teach mental health and emotional wellbeing issues in a safe and sensitive manner.

In our school, we have Worry boxes (or Worry Monsters) in every class that available for children to share any concerns and daily feelings check in with Mood Monsters in EYFS and KS1 and Feelings Emojis in KS2 so we know who might need a quiet chat or some support that day. We use Smiling Mind to practice mindfulness and guided meditation, which helps boost calmness, manage anxiety and improve well-being, as well as Brain Breaks to relieve children of any stress or anxiety that have built up in the previous lesson.