At St. Augustine’s Catholic Voluntary Academy, one of our main intentions is to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community; children, staff, parents and carers. We are acutely aware of how important mental health and emotional well-being is, in the same way as our physical health is, and as such, we make sure that this is a high priority in key areas of our curriculum, namely PSHE, RE and RSHE.
Visit our policies page here for our Pupil Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy.
We know that children’s mental health is a crucial factor in their development, overall wellbeing and how it can affect their learning and achievement. All children go through what would be considered to be ‘normal’ ups and downs during their school career, and others face more significant and upsetting life events.
Schools are a vital part of a child’s life; a caring, nurturing and supportive environment that can support the development of a child’s self-esteem, and offers positive experiences to help to overcome adversity and build resilience. School is a place for some children to have respite from difficult home lives and provides some with positive role models and relationships, factors that are critical in the development and promotion of a child’s wellbeing, belonging and sense of community – a feeling of not being alone.
Our role in school is to support children in learning how to manage times of change and stress, how to reach their full potential in life, and how to access help when they need it. We also make sure that children learn about how they can maintain positive mental health, what factors might affect their mental health, and where they can go if they need help and support.
The World Health Organisation defines mental health and wellbeing as: “a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community”.
Mental health and well-being is not just the absence of mental health problems. Our focus is helping our children to:
• feel confident in themselves
• be able to express a range of emotions appropriately
• be 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
• learn and achieve
