Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH)

At St. Chad’s Catholic Primary School, mental health and wellbeing is a priority. We always aim to find new and creative ways to promote positive mental health and wellbeing and ensure we have a range of whole school and personalised approaches available.

We Are All Equal

Through our school values or Kindness, Truth, Respect, Equality and Forgiveness we acknowledge on a daily basis that although we are all different and unique we should always follow our school values in our treatment of others.

Through our bespoke curriculum offer and ‘outstanding personal development’ plans, we look closely at celebrating and embracing differences to help children understand that people can be different in many ways but we are all equal.

Trusted Adults and Dedicated Spaces

At St. Chad’s Catholic Primary School, we use a ‘Trusted Adult Scheme’ as a tool for building relationships and supporting our children.

All of the children throughout Reception to Year 6 have identified a ‘Trusted Adult’ in school who they would feel comfortable talking to when they are upset or distressed. Children update their Trusted Adult termly but of course, children are welcome to speak to any adult at any point should they need help or support.

At St. Chad’s, we have dedicated spaces in school for children to access during the school day including the Rainbow Room, Prayer Room and Oak Tree Room.

The Rainbow Room is the main space used to support children with their social, emotional and mental health.

The Rainbow Room is accessible to all children throughout the day and provides a safe, child-friendly, comfortable space for children to go when they are feeling upset, anxious or overwhelmed.

Many of our personalised wellbeing sessions also take place in this room.

myHappymind

St. Chad’s Catholic Primary School is a myHappymind School. myHappymind is an NHS-backed and award-winning mental health and wellbeing curriculum for schools.

Overview of myHappymind

We are proud to be a part of the myHappymind Family!

As a whole school program grounded in science and dedicated to building positive mental wellbeing, myHappymind helps children understand how their brains work and creates a culture that helps to build children's resilience, confidence, and self-esteem. myHappymind also teaches the children how to self-regulate and manage their emotions in stressful times, allowing them to be their very best selves!

Learn more at the myHappymind website

myHappymind Learning

All children from Nursery to Year 6 complete weekly lessons which are broken down into five modules:

Meet Your Brain

Understanding how your brain works and how to ensure we look after it so that we can manage our emotions and be at our best. Growth mindset is a key part of this too.

Celebrate

Understanding your unique character strengths and learning to celebrate them. This is a fantastic module for building self-esteem.

Appreciate

Understanding why gratitude matters and how you can develop gratitude as a habit. Gratitude is key to well-being and resilience and we're all about making it a habit!

Relate

Understanding why positive relationships matter and how to build them. We're focussed on the building blocks of good relationships and friendships.

Engage

Understanding how to set meaningful goals that matter and how to keep resilient in times of challenge. This module is all about building self-esteem and resilience too.

myHappymind Parent App

myHappymind also supports parents and carers by providing them with a free app to continue the learning at home. If you are a parent or carer of a child in our school, please contact the school office for our unique access code.

See more about the myHappymind Parent App

Reflexions Mental Health Service

Reflexions are a Mental Health Support Team (MHST) who help increase access to mental health support for children and young people in schools.

The Reflexions team offer cognitive behavioural therapy to support children and young people who have anxiety, worries, low mood or low self-esteem.

St. Chad’s work closely with the MHST to offer personalised one-to-one sessions for children and also further one-to-one sessions to support parents.

Rainbow Counsellors and Mental Health First Aid

At St. Chad’s Catholic Primary School, we have a number of staff members trained in Bereavement Counselling.

Staff have been trained and have age appropriate resources to help support children and their families who have suffered a bereavement.

We also have staff trained in Mental Health First Aid who are always available to support children and families.