Wellbeing

At Nether Kellet Primary, we are highly committed to supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of our pupils, their families and our staff members. (Please see our policies section under key Information for policies on pupil and staff wellbeing).

Curriculum and Ethos

Our curriculum is designed to include many opportunities for our children to develop a growth mindset, qualities and attributes that will help them in school and also in the wider world for the rest of their life. These are summed up by our Planet Inspiration characters:

Independence, Perseverance, Resilience, Cooperation, Communication, Creativity, Decision Making, and Risk Taking.

We enable our children to develop themselves personally, socially and emotionally through a structured PSHE curriculum that includes specific programmes such as Life Education and Kidsafe (a programme aimed at safeguarding our children). We also have assembly themes that are frequently about developing the children personally and socially.

At our school we aim to:

help children understand their emotions and feelings better;
help children feel comfortable sharing their worries or concerns;
help children to form and maintain healthy relationships;
promote self-esteem and encourage children to be confident and that they matter;
help children to be persistent even when faced with challenges;
help children to develop emotional resilience and to manage setbacks;
help children to develop a ‘Growth Mindset’;
help children to develop sense of responsibility for themselves and others as appropriate.

Our ethos in school is that we work together very much as a team and understand both our rights and responsibilities and have care, respect and empathy for each other. As such, our children are in a very safe and supportive environment within school.

Our Rights and Responsibilities

I have the right to be heard.
I have the responsibility to listen to others.
I have the right to be safe and healthy.
I have the responsibility to keep myself and others safe and healthy.
I have the right to learn.
I have the responsibility to do my best at all times and look after equipment.
I have the right to have friends.
I have the responsibility to be kind to others.
I have the right to be myself.
I have the responsibility to respect others’ differences.

Actively Developing Wellbeing and Resilience

We focus on developing the whole child in our school and, as part of that, we seek to enhance their wellbeing. We know that many factors contribute to wellbeing:

Being able to talk: we encourage children to share concerns with a trusted adult, either in school or elsewhere. We have weekly PSHE focused sessions with circle time and other activities developing an open dialogue about issues and feelings. We also have a “worry box” in each class which children know they can post worries in if they find that easier than talking. We deliver Kidsafe training which promotes the importance of speaking out about anything that makes us feel uncomfortable.

Developing self-esteem and a positive self-image: we do a great deal of work with the children on valuing themselves as individuals and knowing it is ok to have things that we find tricky. We work with them on developing aspiration and goal setting and actively developing a growth mindset with the mantra “I can’t do that YET” or “I’m not good at that YET” knowing with perseverance they can become good at things they find hard. We actively celebrate achievements in class and assemblies and seek to give children opportunities to develop talents and skills through extra-curricular sport, art, music, gardening, etc as well as the core curriculum.

Looking after our health through fitness and exercise: we know that being healthy in body aids a healthy mind and vice versa. We do the Mile a Day, we have plentiful play equipment for playtimes to enable children to play actively, develop sporting skills and keep fit. We have climbing frames, a trim-trail, an assault course, a running track, large field with a copse area for play in nature, football pitches, a climbing wall, playground markings for sports and games and an orienteering course that supports active cross-curricular learning. We place a high value on PE and sports with high quality PE lessons, extra-curricular clubs including: football, cricket, gymnastics, tennis, yoga, fitness circuits, dance and dodgeball and participation in many sports competitions: we have won many trophies and medals in recent competitions!

Healthy eating: we also educate the children about healthy eating and teach them about the importance of eating fruit and vegetables. In our food technology lessons there is an emphasis on eating freshly cooked food with good nutrition. We use our school cookery room to teach the children about food preparation and cooking. We grow many vegetables and fruits in our school garden and the children learn the benefits of gardening for wellbeing as well as to grow produce and support the eco-system through sowing bee-friendly plants. We often cook with our home-grown produce. We teach the children about the link between eating healthily and good mental health.

Being outdoors: as a forest school, we learn outdoors as much as possible and we have amazing grounds with trees, large fields and a pond area. Our running track doubles as a nature trail and we learn about our natural environment and nature and encourage the children to develop a lifelong love of nature and being outdoors. All of the children have wellies in school and we have a culture where they play outdoors in all but the most extreme weather!

Having a growth mindset: we know that wellbeing is enhanced through positive beliefs about ourselves and our abilities and can be greatly improved through a sense of achievement and facing challenges successfully. We actively encourage a positive approach to challenge and promote moving outside our comfort zones to try new things and be resilient in the face of set backs. We actively encourage children to make mistakes when they are challenging themselves as we know having a willingness to make mistakes and learn from them is really important in us achieving our potential.

Developing positive relationships: we have our Rights and Responsibilities which underpin our ethos. Children learn the importance of behaving in socially responsible and considerate ways to benefit everyone and help us to all get on and work and play together. We frequently revisit these values and remind children of them when issues arise with all school conveying consistent messages. We have frequent discussions in class, both as organised PSHE or P4C lessons or assemblies and also as incidental chats to embed these values. As a result, the children at our school are predominantly kind, considerate, supportive and caring towards one another and difference is celebrated rather than being a source of upset and conflict. Staff model these positive relationships through their interactions with the children, colleagues and families to ensure that the children are set a good example.

Challenges that may face our children and families:

We know that everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable at times and anyone may need additional emotional/social/ economic support at some point. We take the view that wellbeing and developing positive mental health is everyone’s business and that we all have a role to play. We also teach the children about how to develop resilience and encourage them to understand that having worries and feeling anxious sometimes is perfectly normal within reason. We encourage an open dialogue and seek to create an atmosphere where children and their families can discuss challenges that they face in order for us to support with anything we are able to do. We are always happy to work with parents to help them to help their child in developing their resilience and a positive mindset in the face of challenges.

Support available for our children and their families:

Our Early Help Offer

At the first stage, we provide in-house support:

For children with emotional and mental health needs we devise individual strategies and support for them, this might include working individually or as part of a small group on emotional issues maybe: managing emotions, expressing emotions or dealing with emotions. It may involve devising a specific system or routine that will help that individual child. It may involve support with social interactions at playtimes or other bespoke help to meet individual children’s needs.

For parents who need additional support, advice or assistance due to financial or emotional difficulties for example, we are able to offer some support within school and come to arrangements to help with financial outlays linked to school eg trips, uniform, wrap around care, etc.

Our head teacher, Nicki Bradbury, is trained as an Advanced Mental Health Lead and the school is part of the Lancaster and Morecambe Mental Health Champions network so we regularly send information on mental health support out to families that may be helpful.

Early Help beyond school – links to other agencies

We work closely with the support network in the local area and have links with local family hubs, both at Carnforth and Lune Park. We also work with the school nursing team and professionals linked with various needs that children or families may have including special educational needs, mental health support, family and parenting support, bereavement support, health professionals, children’s social care, etc.

Where there is a need that we don’t feel we can meet in school we invite families to meet with us to seek help from other agencies through Early Help. This may be through sign-posting to agencies, groups or courses that may be of help or referring the family to specific support. We are able to refer our children and families for support by a range of outside agencies including counselling by Child Action Northwest, New Start, Barnados, Cancer Care, Safenet or YMCA, family and parenting support from the Child and Family Wellbeing Service, CAMHS, Children’s Social Care, support sessions led by our Mental Health Champions network, parenting classes, school nurse support as well as support for parents with children with particular special educational or developmental needs. We are proactive in seeking help where this is required and welcome any parents requesting this support for their family or individual child.

We have strong links with local support for children and family mental health through the Lancaster & Morecambe Integrated CAMHS and Children’s Psychological Service and more information about what they offer may be found here: https://www.lscft.nhs.uk/help

We also send out frequent updates from the Children and Family Wellbeing Service: www.lancashire.gov.uk/children-education-families/early-years-childcare-and-family-support/family-support/children-and-family-wellbeing-service/

We send information directly to parents via email or School Ping to give information about services, workshops and upcoming events.

You may also find useful general information here:

https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/children-education-families/

Mental Health Lead Practitioner

During the academic year 2023-24 the head teacher, Nicki Bradbury, undertook the training programme to become a Mental Health Lead Practitioner for the school as per the DFE recommendation to have a Mental Health Lead in all settings. The training encompassed many aspects and this has been cascaded to all staff and links with our Early Help referral process and our work with other agencies. Where children and/ or families have mental health needs, school are able to offer support and signpost to other services.