Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health
As a part of South Pennine Academies, we are committed to a Trust-wide approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing covering children, staff and the wider community.
At Woodlands Primary Academy we consider the development of our children's mental health and wellbeing to be as important as we do their physical well being and we promote its importance both within our curriculum and through the support we offer our children and their families.
Our commitment encompasses ongoing work in 8 priority areas;
- Leadership
- Staff Culture
- Student Culture
- Support for Staff
- Continuous Professional Development
- Support for Pupils
- Working with parents/carers
- Working with external agencies
Our school is wholly inclusive and we work hard to ensure all children have access to resources, provision and environments which support the development of their emotional literacy.
This section of our website should provide lots of useful information to you. If there is more information or support you require on any aspect of looking after your own emotional wellbeing or mental health, or that of someone you know, please do not hesitate to contact us in school
Mental Health & Wellbeing Policy
The Woodlands Offer
Download our MHWB offer here
School Mental Health Award
We are absolutely delighted to have been received the Gold School Mental Health Award by Leeds Carnegie in recognition of the immense amount of work we do at Woodlands to provide the very best provision to support the Mental Health and Wellbeing of our whole community.
This is an incredible achievement and Woodlands are one of very few schools across the country, and the first in Oldham, to attain this level of award.
Work to embed and further develop our provision continues and we are continuing to strive for excellence in our offer
Measuring Wellbeing
As education settings, schools are very used to tracking and measuring attainment of children in curriculum subjects such as English and maths. Teachers are confident in their skills in assessing children's academic progress and plugging gaps in leanring. Over the past 12 months, Woodlands have worked hare to ensure we are also able to track and measure the wellbeing of our children, staff and parents. At Woodlands, we utilise a platform called Bounce Together to help us to do this. Have a look at the case study below to find out more
Bounce Together - A Woodlands Case Study
COVID19 - Supporting our families post lockdown
At school, we are very aware that the lock down measures and restrictions implemented over the last couple of years have been hugely challenging for lots of our staff, parents and children. As you know, we are proactive in our efforts to support your emotional wellbeing and mental health and, now more than ever, we are keen to ensure we can offer support to anyone who may be struggling with this.
The resource below has a focus on healthy lifestyles and contains lots of information and links to wider resources around 4 key components of maintaining a healthy lifestyle; Sleep, Routines, Nutrition & Physical Exercise.
Partnership For Children have also shared some excellent resources with us to support your families emotional wellbeing.
"During the Covid-19 lockdown, we all felt less secure and missed our usual routines. But just as doing exercise improves physical health, you and your child can do activities to boost both yours and their mental health too and this should continue as restrictions lift and things become more 'normal' again.
These activities are based on the programme we use in school to teach PSHCE. Use them to help your child find healthy ways to deal with their feelings and reactions to the Covid-19 situation. "
- Take around 10 minutes to complete
- Cover the following themes: Feelings, staying connected, dealing with change, getting along, dealing with worries and relaxing
- Designed for children aged five to nine but can be adapted for younger or older children
- Include instructions for adults to complete the activities with children
If you are struggling with maintaining a healthy lifestyle there are steps you can take to seek support.
- Contact your GP and discuss your thoughts/feelings with them
- Make a self referral to Healthy Minds - they will book you in to complete a telephone assessment, before offering the most appropriate route for support. They can be contacted on 0161 716 2777 or via their online referral form which can be accessed at https://www.iaptportal.co.uk/ServiceUser/SelfReferralForm.aspx?sd=ed81b973-a703-42e3-8cff-84fd96ff4e6e
- Contact us in school on 0161 359 5698 or email teachers@woodlandsprimaryacademy.org. The office at Woodlands is staffed every day for parents of children from both schools and our admin teams will be able to forward your call to the most appropriate person to offer advice.
- Follow the Oldham twitter handles @ATWellbeingWSA , @ChrissyOrson, @NatWellbeingWSA and @OldhamOA as these account frequently share the latest updates/resources to support local families