Intent

At Wilshere-Dacre Junior Academy, we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community including children, staff, parents and carers. We recognise the importance of mental health and emotional wellbeing on our lives in just the same way as physical health. We take a whole school approach to promoting positive mental health that aims to help our children become more resilient, happy and successful.  By promoting positive mental health and wellbeing, our children are enabled to understand and express their feelings, build their confidence and emotional resilience and therefore their capacity to learn.  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 and access help when they need it.

Implementation

Mental health promotion involves creating and enhancing environments that support the development of positive mental health, wellbeing and healthy lifestyles. At Wilshere-Dacre we have a variety of whole school strategies and personalised interventions to support children with gaining a secure understanding of their emotions by developing their emotional literacy.  These include:

• The use of our learning dispositions throughout the school to support children to develop strategies to be resilient and successful in their learning. 
• We support children with their understanding of social and emotional skills, as well as their awareness of mental health through PSHCE lessons and the use of zones of regulation across the school.
• We work closely with parents and carers to meet the needs of children experiencing challenges with their mental health, as well as emotionally based school avoidance.
• In school we have a full time pastoral support worker, who supports children through planned interventions and wellbeing checks. 
• Children in year 6 are supported with further developing their understanding of the importance of mental health through the use of dot.breathe workshops. 

We have a range of interventions that are used across the school for children who need additional support including:

• Lego therapy
• Social skills groups
• My Time
• Bucket time

We signpost parents to, and work with, a number of outside agencies to assist children who may need additional support including:

• NESSIE
• PHASE mentoring
• Lumi Nova
• School nursing service
• CAMHs
• PALMS

Impact

The learning and support provided here at Wilshere-Dacre will strive to ensure that children have the ability and emotional literacy to recognise, understand and identify their own emotional states and those of other people.

Furthermore we aim to ensure children know

• What can affect their mental health.
• What they can do to maintain positive mental health.
• Strategies they can implement to support positive mental health.
• How to manage times of change and stress
• How they can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues.
• Where or who they can go to if they need help and support.