The embedding of our mental health and well-being programme into your school, is one way of you taking steps to ensure current statutory government guidance is met.
The recent introduction of the Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education outlines that ‘schools are expected to foster pupil wellbeing and develop resilience and character. Central to this is pupils’ ability to believe that they can achieve goals, both academic and personal; to stick to tasks that will help them achieve those goals, even when the reward may be distant or uncertain; and to recover from knocks and challenging periods in their lives.
This should be complemented by development of personal attributes including kindness, integrity, generosity, and honesty.
Our programme enables and empowers students to much of what is outlined in this guidance including but not exclusively;
- Understand the benefits of healthy relationships to their mental wellbeing and self-respect.
- Enable pupils’ to self-control and gain the ability to self-regulate, learning strategies for doing so.
- Know that there is a normal range of emotions (e.g. happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, nervousness) and scale of emotions that all humans experience in relation to different experiences and situations.
- Understand the characteristics of positive and healthy friendships (in all contexts, including online) including: trust, respect, honesty, kindness, generosity, boundaries, privacy, consent and the management of conflict, reconciliation and ending relationships
- How to recognise and talk about their emotions, including having a varied vocabulary of words to use when talking about their own and others’ feelings.
- How to talk about their emotions accurately and sensitively, using appropriate vocabulary.
The mental health and behaviour in schools guidance document sets out how schools can support pupils whose mental health problems manifest themselves in behaviour. It recognises the importance of a whole school approach, whilst acknowledging that schools cannot act as mental health experts and therefore how important referral systems and working with local partners is.
The current Ofsted Inspection Framework evaluates the extent to which the curriculum and the provider’s wider work, support learners to develop their character – including their resilience, confidence and independence – and help them know how to keep physically and mentally healthy.
By having Engage Trust UK in your school delivering our ‘Worth It!’ programme, it enables schools to fulfil their obligations to supporting their students with their Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing. In partnership with Heads of Year, we work with identified Young People and take them through a programme of support. The students are not only taught about the importance of good mental health but are able to work towards it in a way a classroom curriculum is unable to achieve. By prioritising the pastoral experience, pupils feel more energised and have more mental capacity to engage in the lessons and improve the quality of work produced. This leads to a reduction of school related anxiety and an increase of academic achievement.
