Mental Health Award

At Alderman Bolton Primary, we are committed to promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing for our whole school community and recognise how important mental health and emotional well-being 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 well-being and can affect their learning and achievement.

We have developed a whole school approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing using the Jigsaw PSHE curriculum, a programme that teaches children and young people emotional literacy, social and life-long skills, RSE/RSHE and resilience in an age appropriate manner.

We also use resources from MyHappymind which is science-backed programme that is taught in every year group from EYFS to Year 6 and is fully backed by the NHS. MyHappymind is taught across five modules and each introduces a new set of content and habits to help children build resilience, self-esteem and confidence.

Mental Health Award

Alderman Bolton Primary achieved the School Mental Health Award at Bronze Level in March 2023.

We presented a detailed profile of evidence demonstrating we are ‘Embedding’ across one and ‘Embracing’ across the remaining seven of the competencies of the School Mental Health Award. We have used the framework and content of the award to good effect to develop our mental health and wellbeing strategies, structures, and practices.

We made significant and rapid progress in achieving a strong profile, building on work that had already been a part of our culture and ethos.

We articulated how we effectively used the framework to integrate the work we are undertaking and provided comprehensive evidence that supports our self-assessment.

We talk with passion and evidence well how we have implemented numerous comprehensive policies and practices that involves all elements of the school. We highlighted work relating to governance, describing how the change from link governors to a wellbeing and inclusion team has been significant. Specifically, how this has supported staff in their roles as well as enabling a wider group of governors to be involved in the mental health and wellbeing practices of the school. Coffee mornings were referenced as being particularly key in the development of the work with families. These have been able to engage parents with a range of external agencies that they otherwise may not have had access to. In addition, the school are proud of the strong behaviour policy that has supported the development of a calm and positive working environment for pupils.