Our SEMH Provision
Social, Emotional and Mental Health
at Watling Street
Our offer
We all have mental health. Our mental health affects how we feel, think and act. It refers to our emotional, psychological and social wellbeing. Our mental health can change on a daily basis and over time, and can be affected by a range of factors.
It is as important to look after our mental health, as we would look after our physical health. Our state of wellbeing affects how we cope with stress, relate to others and make choices. It also plays a part in our relationships with our family, community, colleagues and friends.
At Watling Street Primary School we take the mental health of our children, their families and each other very seriously. We have an identified senior mental health lead in school and an open door policy for staff and parents alike. We support our children to develop social and emotional skills, providing them with the coping skills and tools they need to understand and manage their thoughts, feelings, behaviour, goals and relationships. We do this through teaching health and wellbeing education and weaving these topics and skills throughout the broader curriculum and school life. Health and wellbeing shouldn’t be taught in isolation but reinforced throughout the curriculum and the time that the child or young person is in school.
As such we offer a bespoke social, emotional and mental health ‘Flourish Curriculum’, that is taught alongside RSE, PSHE and our Growth Mindset Curriculum. We also offer Forest School sessions and a Nurture group Provision. As part of our Flourish curriculum we have weekly assemblies where mental health topics are discussed and key messages communicated to the whole school.
We work closely with Reflexions, our NHS Mental Health Support team and have pupils trained to be mental health ambassadors on the playground to support our pupils. Our SEMH padlet provides information, tools and organisations that can support you if you feel you need some help to manage your mental health or the mental health needs of your child.
Nurture Provision
We work hard to foster a calm, secure, safe and inclusive learning environment, where all of our pupils can learn and thrive. It is our primary aim that every member of the school community feels valued and respected, and that each person is treated fairly and well.
Our school community is built on the strong relationships we have developed with each other, our families and our community and also our school culture, which is based on our school values; Aspiration, Community, Kindness, Learning, Resilience and Respect. These relationships and values underpin our school ethos.
The Nurture Provision at Watling Street Primary School endeavours to ensure that the needs of all learners who attend our setting are met throughout their educational journey.
We believe that in order for our pupils to be able to learn effectively, they need to feel safe in their environment and be both socially and emotionally ready to learn. We understand the importance of holistic development and offer nurturing and enriching experiences to enable the development of the whole child.
We do however recognise that some of our pupils are not always emotionally ready to learn when they come to School and therefore require an increased level of support to enable them to access the wider curriculum. For this reason, we offer a Nurture Group Provision for identified pupils to support their social and emotional development whilst maintaining the high aspirations and fulfilment of potential that we have for all of our pupils.
Nurture groups are an in-school, teacher-led intervention of groups of less than 12 students that effectively replace missing or distorted early nurturing experiences for both children and young adults; they achieve this by immersing students in an accepting and warm environment which helps develop positive relationships with both teachers and peers.
Our Nurture provision offers a range of opportunities for children to engage with early nurturing experiences they may have missed possibly due to adverse childhood experiences, resulting in attachment difficulties and development trauma. Our Nurture provision also provides support in relation to the development of Phonics, English and Maths academic skills, whilst also developing pupil’s self-esteem and social, emotional and mental health needs. Our ultimate aim is to give students the skills and strategies they need to continue participating successfully in education.