Wellbeing in our nursery
What is wellbeing?
Your mental wellbeing is about how you're feeling right now, and how well you can cope with daily life. Our wellbeing can change from moment to moment, day to day, or month to month.
Sometimes it changes because of things that happen to us and sometimes it changes for no reason at all. It can affect the way we feel about ourselves and others, and about the things we face in our lives. (Mind)
In nursery, staff observe the children and measure their wellbeing at any given time. We use the 'Leuven Scale of Wellbeing and Involvement'.
Our curriculum is carefully designed to nurture children's educational, social and emotional development, in order that they become independent, responsible and resilient learners.
Resilience is built through:
- Secure relationships
- Positive attitude
- Problem Solving approach
- Effective communication skills
- Planning and taking responsibility
- Ability to reflect
- A sense of humour!
What is mental health?
Mental health is about how we think, feel and act. Just like physical health: everybody has it and we need to take care of it. Our mental health is on a spectrum, and can range from good to poor. Good mental health can help you to think positively, feel confident and act calmly. (Mind)
Improving our mental health and wellbeing
In nursery, we have embedded the '5 Ways to Wellbeing' into our curriculum. These are simple ways we can improve our own mood and we believe that by teaching young children these behaviours we provide them with 'tools' to help themselves when times are tough. These are lifelong skills.
Key Staff:
Your child's Key Person is the best person to speak to if you have any concerns. The role of a Key Person involves responding sensitively to children’s feelings and behaviours and meeting emotional needs by giving reassurance, such as when they are new to the setting, and supporting the child’s well-being.
We also have a Wellbeing Champion - this is the person with the responsibility of championing and promoting the mental health agenda for children, parents, staff and governors.
We have a Wellbeing Governor, who is very experienced in children's mental health as a previous Children's CAMHs Specialist Teacher.
We have successfully achieved our Bronze Level and Silver Level Award for the Sunderland Mental Health Charter Mark!
We were one of the first nine schools in Sunderland to achieve this award and we are very proud!
To read more about it, please visit the Together for Children website;
https://www.togetherforchildren.org.uk/mental-health-charter-mark
Our 2019 awards were presented by Mayor of Sunderland, Cllr. David Snowdon
Click here to read more about the event.
