At Stepney Park Primary School, we recognise the importance of good mental health. Children who are worried, anxious or stressed do not learn while those that happy, secure and confident thrive.

As a school, we believe we have a dual role in supporting children's mental health and wellbeing:

• To create a protective environment which acts to prevent everyday stresses becoming serious problems.

• To have a robust system of identification and referral to intervene when mental health difficulties are disrupting progress and the healthy development of individual children.

To coordinate this provision, we have identified a Designated Mental Health Lead. This member of staff has a strategic overview of our mental health provision, attends relevant training and supports staff to meet the mental health needs of our children through universal support and referrals.

Importantly, our approach is not limited to supporting children experiencing crisis. Instead, we take a graduated approach, starting with universal provision which aims to equip all children with the tools to support their own mental wellbeing. We also have school staff who are trained to give early support to children experiencing difficulties and we access a range of services to support children whose needs are more severe and require trained external support.

Our universal approaches to supporting children in maintaining good mental health and wellbeing include:

• Working hard to ensure that children create secure and meaningful relationships with adults in school. These relationships enable adults to notice when children may be struggling and ensure that children know who to talk to if they have worries or problems.

• Through PSHEE, assemblies, special days and discussion times, we teach children about a wide range of things that they can do to stay mentally healthy. We recognise that there is a strong link between good physical and mental health, and we help children to become aware of this. 

• Recognising that children will feel happier when they feel included and taking steps to ensure that all children feel welcome. For example, we teach about and celebrate a range of different cultural and religious festivals. We actively promote the celebration of differences and encourage children to speak out if they witness or have been a victim of discrimination.

• Providing ‘safe spaces’ for children to retreat to in the playground and in class. Our playground buddies also help children who are feeling lost or sad in the playground.

• Using restorative approaches where appropriate. When difficulties arise between children, staff use restorative approaches to support children in finding solutions and recovering from disagreements. This is central to our behaviour policy.

We also recognise that certain events in our children’s lives can affect their mental health and wellbeing and that this may result in them needing some extra support. We use a range of different strategies, including screening tools, to support children when there are indicators that their mental health is suffering.

This additional support could include the following: