At St Joseph’s, we are committed to supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of our pupils and staff.
We all have mental health. Our mental health affects how we feel, think and act. It refers to our emotional, psychological and social wellbeing. Our mental health can change on a daily basis and over time and can be affected by a range of factors.
It’s important to look after our mental health, as we would look after our physical health. Our state of wellbeing affects how we cope with stress, relate to others and make choices. It also plays a part in our relationships with our family, community, colleagues and friends.
When children have good levels of wellbeing it helps them to:
- learn and explore the world
- feel, express and manage positive and negative emotions
- form and maintain good relationships with others
- cope with, and manage, change, setbacks and uncertainty
- develop and thrive.
“Just breathe. You are strong enough to handle your challenges, wise enough to find solutions to your problems, and capable enough to do whatever needs to be done.”
Lori Deschene
At St Joseph’s we understand the significance of helping our pupils to look after their mental health and develop their coping skills in order to boost their resilience, self-esteem and confidence. This also supports them in learning to manage their emotions, feel calm, and engage positively with their education – which will help to improve their academic attainment.
Our staff understand the importance of listening to the children, helping them to express how they are feeling and give them the tools to build the resilience that they need. We champion and support mental health and wellbeing for children and staff, both strategically and practically as part of our school improvement planning.
St Joseph’s actively supports the national mental health awareness and wellbeing weeks through the course of the school year which help reinforce our philosophy. Our staff are committed to helping your children to develop social and emotional skills, providing them with the coping skills and tools they need to understand and manage their thoughts, feelings, behaviour, goals and relationships.
Click here to explore the highlights of our Wellbeing week in February 2022
Throughout the Federation, we regularly explore feelings through discussion, role play and art using a variety of literature. Books include Lucy’s Blue Day, The Dot, The Book of Hopes and The Boy, the mole, the fox and the horse. Children have the opportunity to share their ideas about change and resilience, hope and empathy in a creative way. It is in laying these strong foundations that we provide a strong bedrock of opportunities for our children the next generations of children to become happy, purposeful and resilient.
Miss R Ugbo
Wellbeing Lead