At The Academy of Cuxton Schools, we aim to fulfil our role as set out by the DfE (below) and to provide pupils with their ‘foundations for life’, meaning that we aspire to support our pupils and staff to fulfil their potential and to become productive members of our community, now and in the future.

The DfE identifies schools’ role as the following:

• Prevention: creating a safe and calm environment where mental health problems are less likely, improving the mental health and wellbeing of the whole school population, and equipping pupils to be resilient so that they can manage the normal stress of life effectively. This will include teaching pupils about mental wellbeing through the curriculum and reinforcing this teaching through school activities and ethos;
• Identification: recognising emerging issues as early and accurately as possible;
• Early support: helping pupils to access evidence based early support and interventions; and
• Access to specialist support: working effectively with external agencies to provide swift access or referrals to specialist support and treatment.

At Cuxton we:

• Help children to understand their emotions and feelings;
• Encourage children and staff to talk openly about their concerns or worries;
• Support children to form positive relationships;
• Promote self-esteem and ensure children know they count;
• Encourage children to develop resilience.

We do this by:

Pupils:

• Having a flexible approach to any support that needs to be offered;
• Having a clear approach to behaviour in place, with a robust system or rewards and sanctions, and measures in place to tackle any instances of bullying;
• Using the Zones of Regulation so that children can easily share their feelings throughout the day;
• Having a carefully constructed PSHE curriculum in place;
• Running a series of lessons over the year that focus on developing resilience;
• Refer to the ‘learning pit’ so that children understand that mistakes and challenge are part of learning and that they need to be resilient when learning is harder;
• Exploring emotions, feelings, relationships, other key issues and our own school values in assemblies;
• Encouraging parents to share with us any concerns that they have about their child’s wellbeing and mental health;
• Completing pupil surveys and being responsive to the outcomes;
• Using a ‘graduated response’ for any child identified as having mental health problems;
• Having a trained therapy dog on site to support pupils’ wellbeing;
• Training staff to deliver specialised interventions (e.g. Drawing and Talking) that can improve wellbeing and mental health;
• Seeking support from specialist external agencies if pupils demonstrate complex or long-term difficulties.

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​​​​​​​Staff:

• Considering staff workload whenever changes to systems are made or tasks are assigned;
• Encouraging teachers to work from home during their PPA;
• Providing every member of staff with a ‘Wellbeing Day’;
• Having a Senior Leadership Team who have an ‘open door’ policy and encourage staff to share worries and concerns;
• Running staff surveys and being responsive to the outcomes;
• Ensuring a positive school ethos where everyone is valued;
• Having a flexible approach to meeting the work life balance needs of our staff;
• When needed, referring staff to Care First or Occupational Health

We believe that all staff have a responsibility to promote positive mental health, and to understand about protective and risk factors for mental health. Some children and staff will require additional help and all staff should have the skills to identify any warning signs of mental health problems, and ensure that children with mental health needs get the early intervention and support they need. However, only appropriately trained professionals should attempt to make a diagnosis of a mental health problem.

Parents and carers:

We understand that parents and carers have a crucial role in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their children and so we will support them by:

• Encouraging parents and carers to share any concerns with us;
• Signposting them to support documents (via our website and newsletter), websites and agencies;
• Maintaining an open line of communication with them when we are actively supporting their child’s mental health and wellbeing.

Working with other agencies:

At times, we may need to seek additional support from external agencies who can provide more specialist intervention. These agencies include:

• The school nurse
• Educational Psychology services
• Play therapist
• CAMHS
• NELFT
• Counselling services
• Young Carers

In order to support children and staff who are experiencing mental health and wellbeing issues, we have three mental health first aiders, an ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) and an Inclusions Lead, as well as a link Governor for mental health and wellbeing.

For further wellbeing support, you may find these websites and resources useful: