Mental Health and Well-being
In our federation, we are committed to supporting the positive mental health and wellbeing of our whole school community (children, staff, parents and carers).
We have a supportive and caring ethos and our approach is respectful and kind, where each individual and contribution is valued.
We endeavour to ensure that children are able to manage times of change and stress and aim to ensure that they are supported to reach their potential or to access help when they need it.
We are excited to announce, that through the 'Raising Attainment through Wellbeing Programme' we have been awarded our Wellbeing Pioneer Award, being one of the first 10 schools in country to receive this. We are working hard as a federation to acheive our gold award by the end of the year. This is a huge achievement and we are very proud of our federation family.
Our blog is frequently updated with ideas and websites for more information...
Tips to Support Mental Wellbeing Through Nature
Here are some top tips for supporting mental wellbeing through nature, including trying out geocaching, ditiching our phones temporarily and playing sports.
Promoting Physical Wellbeing
This guide provides you with some top tips on how to encourage young people to stay fit and active and remain invested in their physical wellbeing.
May Parent Wellbeing Newsletter
Mood Battery: What is it and how can it help young people?
A mood battery is a great tool to get talking with your young person about how their day can be affected by their mood, recongnising what can put us in a good mood and what can put us in a bad mood during one day! Our Wellbeing Team took on the challenge of completing their own mood batteries, filling in the green battery area with positive mood boosting events from that day and the red area with things that affected their mood in a negative way, from nuttella for breakfast to art class in school, it realy helped them to identify what improves their mood and what maybe hinders it over a 24 hour period. It is hoped that by identifying these small mood boosting moments during their day, they can better understand what might help them to have an improved mood when feeling low.
Interested in giving the mood battery a go? Follow the below link for all the resources you need from Young Minds:
Know Yourself, Grow Yourself
This years Children's Mental Health week will take place between the 3rd - 9th February 2025. We are super excited for this years theme which is Know Yourself, Grow Yourself, last week we lauched this theme with our wellbeing team, taking time to look at all the things that make us unique, what and who we love and how this can help us grow!
Fruit Meditation with our Wellbeing Team
This week our wellbeing team has taken part in fruit mediation, each member of the team chose their favourite fruit and then embarked on a journey of peach and enjoyment! the session involved all their senses (including taste!) and also gave them time to consider the journey which the fuit had taken, sweed to table. This was a great session and reall brought the group together to celebrate and enjoy harvest time.
A Parents Guide to Looking After Yourself
Parenting isn’t always easy. Although it’s often amazing and rewarding to watch your children grow up, and to help them learn to be independent, it can also be really hard work. Follow the link below for some top tips on how you can look after your childs needs whilst also looking after yourself!
Exam Stress
We know that with the summer term comes a lot of wonderful activities in school such as sports day, summer show and may queen, hwoever it also signals the start of SATS, we thought it may be a good time to share some tips on dealing with exam stress!
Please have a look at the below link for lots of great tips:
Wellbeing and Attendance
Some children and young people find attending and engaging with school more difficult than others. This can be for a variety of reasons. In education settings and services supporting children and young people's mental health in North Yorkshire, there has been a reported increase in children and young people experiencing these difficulties. If your child is struggling with aspects of school attendance or engaging with school, it is important that you discuss these issues with school so that we can put in place everything your child needs to support them in school.
Please follow the below link for further information on school attendance and working together to support children:
My Voice Matters 2024
Our Wellbeing Champions really shone during Chinldren's Mental Health week, completeing sessions with other pupil leaders as well as a class assembly infront of 19 of their peers. A huge well done to the team! We really feel like every child at our schools has a voice, and that voice is both heard and listened to.
My Voice Matters - Children's Mental Health Week 2024
Our Fylingdales Wellbeing Champions have started to work on a Class Worship which will take place during Children's Mental Health Week! After looking at 3 inspirational people and voices which made a difference, they chose to focus on Marcus Rashford for their Worship.
We are really looking forward to seeing what the group put together!
Healthy Schools Award
As a school we are currently working towards a bronze award with North Yorkshire Healthy Schools.
This is an excellent award to enable Schools and Early years providers to develop and embed a whole setting approach to support health and wellbeing of pupils and staff.
The award enables Schools and Early years providers to achieve Bronze, Silver and Gold for recognition in the following areas: Active Lives, Emotional Health and Wellbeing, Healthy Food, PSHE / PSED and Staff Wellbeing. There is an action plan and supporting evidence required for each theme which can be accessed once registered with the programme.
The award is funded by Public Health to enable all North Yorkshire early years settings and schools, including academies, to take part for free.
As part of North Yorkshire Healthy Schools there is a wealth of information for parents and families on how to improve our health, both physicial and mental, if you would like to take a look at the information available please follow the below link:
World Mental Health Day 2023
This year the theme of World Mental Health Day highlights, ‘mental health is a universal human right’, but what does this mean?
We know that mental health is a universal human right. But despite this, some groups face more barriers to good mental health than others. Inequalities in mental health lead to certain groups facing disproportionately higher rates of mental health issues.
The Mental Health Foundation are a wonderful charity who focus their research, policy & advocacy work, and programmes on those groups most affected. This includes families, young people, people with long-term health conditions, and refugees and asylum seekers.
If you would like to know more about the Mental Health Foundation please follow the below link:
6th October 2023
Sometimes parenting can feel like a very lonely place, especially when our child exhibits behavours that we can't understand and it feels like no one else is experiencing parenthood like you are. Place2Be has a wonderful site called Parent Smart, the site focuses on childrens mental health and helping parents to understand and help their child with what they might be experiencing, useful tips and tools for parents written by mental health professionals.
Pupil Wellbeing Champions
As part of our ongoing commitment to wellbeing in our schools we have been working hard to establish our Pupil Wellbeing Champion Team.
They have started their training and are begining to work as a cohesive team on ativities and planning future events.
At our last meeting we spoke about friendships and what we feel are important qualities when looking for a friend, take a look at the friendship pyramid they created and see if you agree.
30th June 23
As we look ahead to the summer holidays, we thought it might be useful to name a few apps that our parents and older children may want to have on their phones/tablets to maintain good wellbeing over the six weeks and beyond.
Some of the apps available include:
Mental Health Facts
The Centre for Mental Health has put together a really informatve fact sheet about mentaal health in children and young people. Sometimes it is easy to focus on ourselves and mot think about others and how their lives may be affected by mental health issues, this sheet gives an overview of mental health in children and young people, if they are receieving help and how mental health can affect their lives.
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CYP mental health fact sheet 2023 | [pdf 408KB] |
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8th June 2023
Residentials
With our Edinburgh residential coming up next week we thought it might be helpful to post about trip anxiety and how parents can help to reduce the worries their child has for trips away from home.
Our staff are always there to help a child who is feeling home sick, but a child having their questions answered before they set off for the trip may help them settle quicker.
Wildchild Adventure have a wonderful post which has 6 top tips on how to prepare your child for a school trip!
Link: School Trip Preperation
1st June 23
Secondary School Transition
With the very last half term of the 22/23 academic year approaching fast we turn our attention to the next steps for our wonderful year 6 pupils, whether they are heading to Eskdale, Caedmon College Whitby or further affield we want them to feel confident in taking that leap.
If you are wondering as a parent or guardian how you can help your child feel confident moving on to the next level of educaiton then Palce2Be have created a handy guide which is aimed at helping parents to help their child through this transition. Please follow the link below to visit the Place2Be site.
Link: Helping your child prepare for Secondary or High School
26th May 23
As part of our reading reccomendations, we have arrived at a fabulous poertry book which has wonderful poetry made for everyone. Inside is a treasure trove of writing celebrating courage and empowerment. Read the poems aloud or curl up with them in a quiet corner. Inspiring courahe and empowerment through the generations.
Mental Health Awareness Week
Mental Health Awareness Week is an ideal time for us all to think about mental health, tackle stigma, and find out how we can create a society that prevents mental health problems from developing and protects our mental well-being.
The focus of Mental Health Awareness Week this year is anxiety. Nearly 300,000 young people in Britain have an anxiety disorder.
In the UK, anxiety disorders are estimated to affect 5-19% of all children and adolescents, and about 2-5% of children younger than 12.
Why not take a look at the Mental Health Foundation's website for more information about Mental Health Awareness Week:
Link: Mental Health Foundation
Social Media and Mental Wellbeing
As our older children are readying themselves for their last term in Primary School and the transition to Secondary School, they may be becoming even more aware of social media sites, or thinking of getting a profile of their own on sites such as Tiktok or Instagram.
Although social media can be a place to share all the exciting moments in our lives, it can also be a place for negativity.
When advising your child on the use of social media it may be helpful to consider who the fellow site users are, how much personal contact other users can have with your child (DM's, post comments), as well as what your child has acccess to and what they are sharing/posting.
The Children's Society have shared a blog post on TikTok for parents and how TikTok can affect children's mental health, please follow the link below for this informative blog:
26th April 23
Stress Awareness
While it’s normal to feel stressed once in a while, long-term stress or high levels of stress can be harmful to your mental health. Children can feel just as much stress as adults and it's important that we talk about our life stressors and develop healthy was of managing stress at an early age.
Stress could make you feel:
- irritable or impatient
- overwhelmed
- like your thoughts are racing
- anxious, worries and/or depressed
Take a look at Young Minds advice about managing stress and how stress can effect not just our mental health but also our physical health.
Link: Young Minds Website
7th April 23
When you're feeling low or overwhelmed, it can be hard to know how to cope. But distracting yourself or doing one of these awesome activities or games from the Childline Coping Kit can help you feel better.
Even doing just one positive thing every day can help your mood. Not sure what you want to do today? Have a look at the tool kit linked below for ideas:
International Day of Happiness
There are lots of issues in our world right now. We can’t always change what is happening, but we can choose how we respond.
Why not have a look at the International Day of Happiness website for three simple steps you can use anytime to help make life happier and kinder.
14th March 23
Mental Health and Comic Relief
This week we are getting ready to celebrate Red Nose Day together on Friday, children are invited to attend school in none uniform for a small donation towards the charity. You may be wondering what Comic Relief has to do with mental health, however in 2013 Comic Relief funded an awareness-raising campaign around maternal mental health. It led to a government pledge that’s improved countless lives in the UK. The charity has also been working relentlassy with other charities such as Mind and Rethink Mental Illness to tackle the stigma that surrounds mental health issues.
Please click the link below to see more of the wonderful work that the chairty does:
6th March 23
Do you often feel like you're busy and under pressure? Learning to take a pause and live mindfully helps us get more out of life - and cope better in difficult times.Take a look at this months action for happiness calendar and see if any of the suggestions could help you to have amore Mindful March!
27th February 23
This week in our wellbeing blog we will be focusing on the transition from Primary to Secondary School, although September may feel a long way off, our year 6 pupils will receive their confirmation on Wednesday of which Secondary School they will be attending.
For many transitioning from Primary to Secondary School will be an exciting time in their lives, a huge part of growing up and an oportunity to have new experiences. However, we understand that along with these feelings of excitement some children may be feeling anxious or worried about the transition. Below we have popped the link to a great guide for parents and carers on the transition process, this guide will provide you with ideas and thoughts on how to support your child through the transition and really empower them to take those next steps!
Supporting Children's Transition to Secondary School - Guide for Parents and Carers
20th February 23
Before half term, the children celebrated Children's Mental Health Week and took part in a range of activities to support their learning, understanding and own wellbeing. Today, each class teacher chose a member of their class to receive a mental health champion award. These children have stood out in their class for their understanding, caring attitude and contributions.
Well done everyone, we are really proud of you!
6th - 12th February 23
This week has seen all of the classes going on a voyage of discovery in relation to the Children's Mental Health week theme of 'Lets Connect'. I have seen children engaged in a whole host of creative learning to develop their understanding of the importance of the connections that we have in school, at home, online, in the community and wider world and even the positive connections that we may make in the future. I have been impressed with the range of collaborative activities that the children have been engaged in and there have been some truly outstanding reflections from the children.
https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/
See below for a snap shot of what we have been getting up to.
10th February 23
We are delighted to announce that, this week, we have been awarded the National College National Mental Health and Well Being Accreditation, which celebrates our commitment to developing a whole school approach towards supporting staff and pupil well-being. It is very fitting that this has arrived during Children's Mental Health week and we look forward to further developing our mental health and well being strategy in the coming months.
3rd February 23
In our schools, we really pride ourselves in our friendly and welcoming ethos. Our children show great care for each other and we hope that they will all enjoy this month's Action for Happiness Calendar, which has the theme of 'being friendly'. (See the image below)
Everyone's path to happiness is different. Based on the latest research, Action for Happiness have identified 10 Keys that tend to make life happier and more fulfilling. Together they spell GREAT DREAM and you can explore them below.
Follow the link below to watch Vanessa King, from Action for Happiness, sharing her top tips for Friendly February, based on the key of Relating (one of the 10 Keys for Happier Living).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygn3NyeuA_I&t=27s
In February, let's be friendly to others and give your relationships a boost.
27th January 23
Caring Together - Local Services
Do you know people in our community who need help and support. Whitby & District Caring Together is a local voluntary organisation and registered charity that provides practical and emotional help for carers, the people they care for and older people living on their own.
The service is provided by volunteers and is tailored to individual need. Visits can be made on a regular or more flexible basis.
They are working in rural locations to provide social events to people who have difficulty getting out. More details can be seen on their News and Information page.
If you would like to find out more about these services and how they might be of help to you, or to someone you know, call us on Tel.01947 605757.
13th January 23
We believe that kindness has the power to change people's lives, strengthen communities and ultimately change the world - while improving our own well-being at the same time.
Why not try the Kindness Challenge - see how many more things you could add to this list.
We would like to signpost you to the 52 Lives Kids Kindness Club. The website is a great resource for parents/carers, and children. There is an array of challenges that are set on a weekly basis and are often linked to world events.
https://schoolofkindness.org/kids-club
This week, they reflect on the fact that we feel good when we connect with others. For your self-kindness tip this week, we are suggesting that you play a game with the people that you live with. Are you a board game fan? Or perhaps I-Spy or charades?! Maybe card games are your favourite! Whatever your preference, have fun with your family and enjoy!
6th January 23
Do you want to be part of a happier and kinder world in 2023? Even in uncertain times, there are lots of things we can do to stay hopeful, make progress and help others. The Happier January calendar is full of actions to get the new year off to a positive start. Share it with friends to give them a boost too.
You can also Action for Happiness App to get daily inspiration and be part of a friendly community putting these ideas into action.
Get moving this January!
Being physically active is fantastic for our mental health. And it's even better when we connect with others too. So we thought that we would share the RED January campaign to help us all get moving throughout January. Will you join the challenge? Find out how you can get involved.
16th December 22
The local library have started a new service and are offering the use of well being bags.
In addition, there are local resources to support with mental health and well being. Visit www.thegoto.org.uk and the mini marketplace at https://thegoto.org.uk/mini-marketplace/ for more information about services that are available in the local area. The attached guide has been produced by young people for young people.
They are also running a 12 days of Christmas campaign to promote these resources, pages on the Go-To website and key services throughout the Christmas period. Please help us raise awareness by following them on social media and sharing, liking and retweeting their posts:
Instagram: @thegotony
Twitter: @TheGoTowebsite1
Facebook: @thegotony