Mental Health and Wellbeing

Mental Health and Wellbeing at Offley

At Offley Primary Academy, we consider the mental health of all our pupils, staff and school community to be of the upmost importance.  We believe that if children are equipped with the tools and knowledge to respond to life’s challenges, they will be better prepared to learn and happier to come to school.  Not only will this benefit them during their school life, but by developing strategies to support their mental health at a young age, this will help to shape positive mental health across their lifetime.

It is our intention to build a school community that challenges the stigma surrounding mental ill-health and that can signpost those with a mental illness towards the relevant support.  We believe that all members of the school community can play a part in supporting people with their mental health if educated sufficiently.

Our Senior Mental Health Lead is Mrs Casey, who works closely with our SENCO, Mrs Hirst, and our Family Support Officer, Mrs Pass, as the Mental Health and Wellbeing Team.

myHappymind

We are proud to be a myHappymind school. Each week, pupils take part in sessions that teach them about the science behind their mental health.  The programme teaches the children about the parts of the brain, how they act and how this can affect their behaviour or thought processes.  They also learn tools to support them when they are feeling negative emotions.  Our pupils are very adept at talking about their brains and they regularly use ‘Happy Breathing’ to help themselves to calm down.

Parents can support their children at home using the parent app by following the link https://myhappymind.org/parent-resources

To create an account, you will need an authentication code which you can get by emailing the academy office at offleyadmin@sbmat.org

Our Happiness Heroes, pictured above, work with Mrs Casey to support their peers and promote myHappymind throughout the school.  They work together to plan how we can involve the whole school community in our mental health vision.

We are proud to announce that we are a myHappymind Bronze Accredited school!  This means that as a school we consider the mental health and wellbeing of our children as one of our top priorities. We have created a whole school culture that helps build our children’s resilience, confidence and self esteem as well as teaching them how to self regulate in those stressful times. This Accreditation badge has been awarded thanks to all the effort our staff, children, governors and parents have put in to bring the lessons of myHappymind to life all around our school!

To Learn more about the myHappymind for Schools programme visit their website here – https://myhappymind.org/