Pastoral Care
At Broughton Primary School, the well-being of our pupils and staff team is paramount to all that we do in school. Although we currently already offer a wide range of support strategies in school, we will always continue to strive to improve further. Our commitment to developing positive mental health for everybody in school will not waiver.
Nurture Group
We offer a weekly Nurture Group to our children as we understand the importance of nurture for the development of wellbeing.
Our sessions are mainly practical with children being given a target to focus on, addressing such issues as friendships, self-esteem, teamwork, methods of resilience and listening skills. The sessions can also be tailored to more specific issues, such as bereavement or family separation, if required.
We aim to make the activities fun and include mindfulness, arts and crafts to engage the creativity in our children, baking, learning about different countries, trips etc
Our school Nurture Group is ‘fluid’ meaning our pupils can access it as and when they need to. Our Nurture staff liaise with class teachers very regularly to keep them up to date with progress and to ensure there are links made between the nurture activities and the school Curriculum.
As part of our pupil's recent work around anxiety, they designed worry monsters which were left behind in the nurture room - to represent the children leaving their worries behind. They then sculpted their own clay 'safe creatures' which they could take home to protect them from their worries:
Nurture worry monsters
Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA)
We are very proud that we have a qualified ELSA, Miss Rebecca Vevers, who is supporting our pupils either in small groups or on a 1:2:1 basis. The ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) intervention was designed to build the capacity of schools to support the emotional needs of their pupils from within their own resources. This is achieved by training teaching assistants to develop and deliver individualised support programmes to meet the emotional needs of children and young people in their care. It recognises that children learn better and are happier in school if their emotional needs are also addressed. This intervention is now widely implemented by educational psychologists across Britain.
Senior Lead Mental Health Practitioner:
Broughton Primary's fully trained Senior Lead Mental Health Practitioner is Mrs Lynsey Turpin. Since completing her training, Mrs Turpin has created a well-being team in school to develop the support we currently offer our pupils and staff team. Mrs Turpin has already set-up a new initiative in school called 'catch and chat' where the well-being team will work on a rota to spend some time outside during break times, where they are available to chat to informally should any of our pupils be feeling worried, scared or upset. They are also looking for pupils to volunteer to become 'Well-being Champions' in school, who will work within the well-being team to find strategies that they can use to support their peers.
Whole-School Positive Mental Health and Well-being assembly: 2022
Mental Health Assembly 2022