Millfield Primary School

Mental Health and Well Being

At Millfield Primary School, we are committed to supporting the emotional health and well being of our pupils, parents / carers and staff.

We know that everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times, anyone may need additional emotional support. We take the view that positive mental health is everybody’s business and that we all have a role to play.

At our school we:

help children to understand their emotions and feelings better
help children feel comfortable sharing any concerns or worries
help children socially to form and maintain relationships
promote self esteem and ensure children know that they count
encourage children to be confident and ‘dare to be different’
help children to develop emotional resilience and to manage setbacks

Our lead teachers for Mental Health and Well Being are:

Miss J Holden and Mrs H Geobey (SENDCO)

Teaching Mental Health and Well Being

We know it is important to find, and practise, positive ways of thinking as this helps to build resilience, wellbeing and a positive mental health. Research has found that taking action in the following five areas can promote a positive mental health and wellbeing. These areas help children and families nurture their own.

Each week at school, we use the 5 Ways to Wellbeing to support and promote the importance of our mental health and wellbeing. On Wellbeing Wednesdays, each class takes part in a different activity to promote one of the five ways.

The 5 Ways to Wellbeing are:

Give
Connect
Keep Learning
Be Active
Take Notice

Click here to see activities and ideas you could do at home to support and nurture your own mental health and wellbeing as a family.

Brilliant Schools

We also use The Brilliant Schools programme. This is a service for schools, enabling access to high-quality wellbeing lessons and courses for staff, pupils and parents. Brilliant Schools is a great resource to develop wellbeing across the whole school community. They introduce themes of happiness, wellbeing, flourishing, resilience, positivity and personal responsibility. We will keep you informed and up to date with any live events suitable for you as parents and carers to take part in on our newsletter and school jotter.

Family Support

There are some excellent online resources available to help parents / cares and their children with mental health, including:

MindEd, a free educational resource from Health Education England on children and young people’s mental health
Rise Above, which aims to build resilience and support good mental health in young people aged 10 to 16
Every Mind Matters, which includes an online tool and email journey to support everyone to feel more confident in taking action to look after their mental health and wellbeing
Bereavement UK and the Childhood Bereavement Network, provide information and resources to support bereaved pupils, schools and staff

Barnardo’s See, Hear, Respond service, provides support to children, young people and their families who aren’t currently seeing a social worker or other agency, and who are struggling to cope with the emotional impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19).

You can access via the ‘See, Hear, Respond’ service self-referral webpage or Freephone 0800 151 7015.

It is also vital to report any safeguarding concerns you have about any child. Contact the NSPCC helpline.

Mental Health and Well Being News

Monday 7th to 13th February 2022

We are again this year taking part in Place2Be’s children’s mental health week.

This year's theme is Growing Together.

Growing Together is about growing emotionally and finding ways to help each other grow. Challenges and setbacks can help us to grow and adapt and trying new things can help us to move beyond our comfort zone into a new realm of possibility and potential - however, emotional growth is often a gradual process that happens over time, and sometimes we might feel a bit ‘stuck’.

We will be encouraging children (and adults) to consider how they have grown, and how they can help others to grow.

A home / school learning activity was sent home with pupils on Friday (4th February) called One Piece at a Time. This activity it provided suggested a ideas for well being activities that children and parents could complete together and focused on the 5 Ways to Well Being programme we follow in school.

This week we again took part again in Anti Bullying Week which this year had the theme 'One Kind Word' how little acts of consideration can break down barriers and brighten the lives of the people around us.

Friday 8th October 2021

Once again we are supporting the YoungMinds mental health charity for children, young people and their parents by having a non uniform day and wearing as much yellow as we can! All pupils will be are encouraged to wear something yellow (where possible) to show their support for this charity and raise awareness of the importance of young people's mental health.

Monday 19th April 2021

The start of the summer term and today we launched the Brilliant Schools wellbeing package at our school (the funding of which was provided for by grants obtained by the Fazeley Residents association).

Monday 1^st February – Friday 7^th February 2021
We took part in the charity Place2Be’s children’s mental health week with the theme ‘Express Yourself’. Throughout the week, we encouraged children and families to express themselves in different ways like dancing, baking, gardening, poetry, singing, sport etc. Take a look at our whole school video with photos and videos in of our children ‘expressing themselves’ in the photo gallery on our website.

Friday 9^th October 2020
At a time when it’s needed most, Millfield came together to support the charity Young Minds and took part in #HelloYellow to show young people they’re not alone with their mental health. We encouraged children to think about what makes them happy and strategies that we could use to help us relax and stay calm. We made bunting covered in positive messages, wellbeing bingo with all of our favourite activities on to make us happy and designed #HelloYellow superheroes.

Monday 3^rd – Friday 9^th February 2020
Place2Be’s children’s mental health week’s theme this year was ‘Find your brave’. We encouraged children to think about how resilience in important in supporting our emotional wellbeing each day and how having it can help you reach your goals. Children discussed the theme of ‘bravery’ and what they have achieved through being brave.