PSHE and Wellbeing/Mental Health

Relationships Education, Health Education and Sex Education in the Primary School 

Information for Parents and Carers

PSHE Content Overview

Intent

Across the Trust, we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community (children, staff, parents and carers), and recognise how important mental health and emotional wellbeing is to our lives in just the same way as physical health. We recognise that children’s mental health is a crucial factor in their overall wellbeing and can affect their learning and achievement. We ensure PSHE is engraved into children’s long term memory as it is a subject that is covered every week and is very easily interlinked with their everyday lives. We hope to expose children to real life situations that they may experience and facilitate them with the knowledge to support them through an appropriate response to these.

Implentation

We aim to create an environment that promotes positive mental health in all pupils. We provide support to pupils, especially children suffering from mental ill health, through wellbeing days, national focused weeks, targeted interventions and clubs, SEAL, ELSA, friendship groups, nurture groups, FSW and we use specialist referrals to CAMHS and EdPsy. These sessions remind children who they can turn to with problems both within and outside of school. We provide support to staff working with young people with mental health issues, increasing understanding and awareness of common mental health issues, alerting staff to early warning signs of mental ill health in pupils and providing opportunities for staff to look after their mental wellbeing. Alongside this, the hub has allowed many opportunities for staff CPD to become trained in mental health awareness of children. Brookfield are currently running parent workshops to help parents with strategies to support their children. This is something that we are looking to spread across the hub. 

We also launch each half term’s Jigsaw with an assembly to show the starting point for the sessions. Topics we learn within PSHE are cross-curricular and cover a range of areas that link to children’s everyday life and situations that they could be experiencing themselves. As a hub, we have taken part in a range of workshops, many celebration days and have had various visitors into both schools to raise the profile of both PSHE and Wellbeing. If additional issues occur within class rooms or in extra sessions, these can be supported through ELSA and in the moment sessions and teacher led conversations. Across the Hub, we use worry boxes and worry pegs to allow children to alert a member of staff when they have something they need to discuss that is concerning to them. This gives children the opportunity to have a safe space to express their emotions and find an appropriate output. Our RSE curriculum equips children with the knowledge and skills of healthy relationships and prepares them for changes that will happen in the near future. This is tailored to the needs of the children in both schools and altered if necessary. 

Impact

The impact is an ongoing outcome to be measured. We use children surveys (such as ImpactEd) in order to learn more about their well being confidentially and how impactful something has been. In regards to the PSHE curriculum, we have seen positive effects including and not limited to children feeling confident in themselves, are able able to express a range of emotions appropriately, are able to make and maintain positive relationships with others, cope with the stresses of everyday life, manage times of stress and be able to deal with change. ELSAs work across KS1 and KS2 to support children to build resilience and overcome problems and issues they may have - bereavement, separation, anxiety, attitude to learning, behaviour. ELSA is made up of trained TAs / HLTAs who take on the role of an ELSA and offer a series of sessions to support children with a specific emotional issue. Referrals come from class teachers or SLT. FSW is a trained professional that meets with parents and children to ascertain a higher level of need within the family. Workshops and support is given to both the child and parents. The PSHE curriculum Jigsaw has a variety of elements that direct children to consider and reflect on various aspects of their well-being, both emotional and physical. It encourages them to consider different topics such as relationships and sparks discussions and a range of opinions on aspects of their lives.