Mental Health and Well Being

In order to help our school community flourish we believe well-being is all about our holistic health including physical, spiritual, mental and emotional. At St Mary’s, we are committed to supporting the health and well-being of our school community to ensure everyone feels able to thrive. Positive mental well-being is essential if children and young people are to flourish and lead fulfilling lives.

We aim to:

• 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 positive 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

At our school, 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. 

Two key elements to support good mental health are:

• Feeling Good – experiencing positive emotions like happiness, contentment and joy. Including feelings like curiosity, engagement and safety.
• Functioning Well – how a person is able to function in the world, this includes positive relationships and social connections, as well as feeling in control of your life and having a sense of purpose.

Our role in school is to ensure that children are able to manage times of change and stress, and that they are supported to reach their potential or access help when they need it. Children are taught when to seek help, what help is available, and the likely outcome of seeking support so that they have the confidence and knowledge for themselves or others. We also have a role to ensure that children learn about what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what affects their mental health and how they can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues. As part of our targeted provision, we have and continue to access, help and support for pupils when required.

We all take responsibility for the support of good mental health however we also have a pastoral team to support well being.

At St Mary’s we offer different levels of support:

Universal needs – the needs of all children and young people and opportunities to develop resilience

Additional needs – the needs of those made vulnerable at some time by life experiences

Targeted needs – the needs of those children and young people who need differentiated support and resources

Specialist needs – those children and young people who are having specialist intervention by trained professionals.

Pupil Support

Adult Support