At Parklands Infant and Nursery School, we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community (children, staff, parents and carers), and recognise how important mental health and emotional wellbeing is to our lives in just the same way as physical health.

We recognise that children’s mental health is a crucial factor in their overall wellbeing and can affect their learning and achievement. All children go through ups and downs during their school career and some face significant life events.

The Department for Education (DfE) recognises that: “in order to help their children succeed schools have a role to play in supporting them to be resilient and mentally healthy”.

Our school is a place where children can experience a nurturing and supportive environment that has the potential to develop self-esteem and give positive experiences for overcoming adversity and building resilience. For some, our school will be a place of respite from difficult home lives and offer positive role models and relationships, which are critical in promoting children’s wellbeing and can help engender a sense of belonging and community.

Our school has an important part to play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children. Our role is in:

• Prevention

To create an ethos, environment and curriculum that builds resilience, ensures children are able to manage times of change and stress and nurtures positive mental health and wellbeing.

• Identification

To understand what mental health needs are and recognise any emerging issues.

• Early Support

To provide evidence based interventions for children identified with needs eg; Nurture groups, ELSA support, Positive Play, Behaviour Box.

• Access to Specialist support.

To work effectively with outside agencies for children identified with high needs.

Our aim is to help develop the protective factors which build resilience to mental health problems and be a school where;

• All pupils are valued

• Pupils have a sense of belonging and feel safe

• Pupils feel able to talk openly with trusted adults about their problems without feeling any stigma

• Positive mental health is promoted and valued

• Bullying is not tolerated

At Parklands Infant and Nursery School, there are many ways in which we support the children’s mental health and well-being. For example:

• Throughout our curriculum and everyday school life we encourage and support the children to understand their feelings and emotions.
• Through our Parklands Person ethos, children are taught to be Kind, Respectful, Polite, Positive, Important and Safe. 
• Embedded in our behaviour policy, we encourage the children to be resilient when challenges occur, to be ready to learn having a positive mindset, and to be respectful to others.
• We encourage the children to be self-confident and develop their self-esteem, ensuring that they all know that they matter.
• We support children to know that they can talk to us and open up, sharing their feelings and worries.
• We support the children to build and maintain positive social relationships with others.