Claire Lee, head instructor at Burley Oaks Main Faculty in West Yorkshire, shares how her college is supporting pupil wellbeing to assist them as they develop up.
Early intervention and assist for wellbeing
Pupil wellbeing is on the coronary heart of our curriculum, which has been refocused by the influence of the pandemic and our give attention to optimistic psychological well being.
Our wellbeing strategy and supply is properly established, having advanced regularly over time. The preliminary impetus to make a change arose from discussions with an area medical psychologist and the oversubscription for personal psychological well being companies for youngsters regionally. Our native consortium of major colleges bid for native authority funding to deal with this nice want from our place in major colleges; it was clear to us that preventative and proactive work was wanted to empower our youngsters and put together them for his or her teenage years.
The result of this bid was a programme of studying based mostly on matters akin to ‘nervousness’ and ‘huge emotions’ which had been focused to wish. Demand was nice, with youngsters and households eager to enroll to classes, leading to most kids at school accessing no less than one of many programmes by the top of the second yr of roll out.
We now have since harnessed the DfE supply of funded coaching for a senior psychological well being lead and collaborated with native companions and native authority to develop our apply additional. Our provision is wide-ranging and features a DfE skilled senior psychological well being lead, a wellbeing mentor, devoted wellbeing Wednesdays, peer mentoring and lunchtime leaders.
From our wellbeing staff, we’ve skilled workers to ship particular programmes of labor akin to ‘drawing and speaking’, to assist pupils speak about their emotions and feelings. Our skilled ‘wellbeing ambassadors’ are pupils who lead on and supply a voice for all issues psychological well being and wellbeing, opening up conversations and guaranteeing relationships are supportive. They’ve just lately arrange our intergenerational mission which introduced collectively completely different age teams from throughout the neighborhood to mutually assist wellbeing. Occasions organised have included a conker match with tea and desserts, a drop-in session on the parish council and a Christmas Bonanza.
After all, all these items are complemented by a cleverly designed PSHE curriculum. Our preventative strategy is significant to empower youngsters with the abilities, data and consciousness to grasp their psychological well being wants and establish points early on, and we will see the distinction this makes to our pupils. Nonetheless, it’s not solely these elements that assist comfortable, settled and assured youngsters ready for the world forward of them.
So what else makes a distinction?
There may be additionally huge analysis displaying how music can have an effect on our emotions, temper and wellbeing. Music at Burley Oaks is central to our curriculum supply. On most days, you’ll be able to hear the bass of the drummers in our faculty creating the beat and singing is integral to our studying and helps youngsters commit studying to reminiscence very powerfully. With a self-taught, specialist music instructor, we will give attention to a rigorous and thoroughly deliberate programme of labor to make sure that youngsters can each play and recognize music and realise all of its advantages.
The varsity tradition of psychological well being consciousness is paramount to our strategy which is constructed on nurturing optimistic relationships, teamwork, care and compassion. On the centre of all of that is the ability of our workers and the broader neighborhood who actually worth each other and the contribution of every particular person’s distinctive function in making a distinction. Our workers create a optimistic ethos and tradition and from there, we construct a jigsaw of studying alternatives by means of our huge curriculum.
We’re lucky to have a faculty staff who reside and breathe our motto of ‘belong, consider, obtain’, and so they assist place psychological well being and wellbeing on the coronary heart of all the pieces we do.
Discover out extra about psychological well being and wellbeing assist
Head to gov.uk for extra psychological well being and wellbeing assist and assets and information on the Schooling Workers Wellbeing Constitution which units out shared commitments to advertise, defend and improve the wellbeing of workers.
