At St Marie’s Catholic Primary School, we are committed to promoting the emotional wellbeing of both staff and pupils.  Over the next few months we will be working towards achieving the Wellbeing Award for Schools. This award has been developed in partnership with the National Children’s Bureau (NCB). The award is intended to help schools prepare and equip themselves to promote emotional wellbeing and positive mental health across the whole-school community

The award:

• Promotes mental health as part of everyday school life
• Improves the emotional wellbeing of staff and pupils
• Identifies mental health problems early and offer appropriate support
• Ensures people know the importance of mental health awareness
• Includes opinions and suggestions from parents, pupils and staff​

During December, you will be sent a link to an online survey in order to make sure that we improve the support we offer.

The information from the survey will help our school to improve its work in providing better provision for emotional wellbeing and mental health. All information collected is anonymous and will be kept confidential.

Thank you for your on-going support.

THE AWARD PROCESS

There are five stages in the WAS process and the school will be supported throughout in order to evidence best practice and to achieve the award:

• School self-evaluation
• Preparation of an Action Plan
• Implementation of actions and collecting evidence into a portfolio
• Interim assessment of progress
• Verification of achievement of the award

The award is expected to be achieved within a maximum of 12-15 months. Within this timescale, the process is supportive, developmental and progressive, rather than a box-ticking, target-driven exercise.

THE AWARD OBJECTIVES

The WAS has eight objectives which focus on areas of evaluation, development and celebration of the work of schools in promoting and protecting emotional wellbeing and positive mental health. Each of these areas is further broken down into Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

Objective 1: The school is committed to promoting and protecting positive emotional wellbeing and mental health by achieving the Wellbeing Award for Schools.

Objective 2: The school has a clear vision and strategy for promoting and protecting emotional wellbeing and mental health, which is communicated to all involved with the school.

Objective 3: The school has a positive culture which regards the emotional wellbeing and mental health as the responsibility of all.

Objective 4: The school actively promotes staff emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Objective 5: The school prioritises professional learning and staff development on emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Objective 6: The school understands the different types of emotional and mental health needs across the whole-school community and has systems in place to respond appropriately.

Objective 7: The school actively seeks the ongoing participation of the whole-school community in its approach to emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Objective 8: The school works in partnerships with other schools, agencies and available specialist services to support emotional wellbeing and mental health.