Welcome to our wellbeing page.

As a Rights Respecting school, our children have the following rights with regard to their wellbeing...

At Freegrounds Infant School we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community including children, all staff, parents and carers. Emotional health and wellbeing impacts on our daily lives and our ability to learn and cope with the challenges we face every day.

In our school we endeavour to ensure that children are able to manage times of change and stress and that they are supported to reach their potential or access help when they need it. We also have a role to ensure that children learn about what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what affects their mental health, how they can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues, and where they can go if they need help and support.   

Our aim is to help develop the protective factors which build resilience to mental health problems and to be a school where:

· All children are valued

· Children understand their emotions and experiences better

· Children feel comfortable sharing any concerns or worries

· Children are able to form and maintain relationships

· Children are taught to be confident and promote their self-esteem

· Children develop resilience and ways of coping with setbacks

At our school, we offer different levels of support:

Universal support – To meet the needs of all our children through our overall ethos and our wider curriculum. Our learning values, our SMSC curriculum, Zones of Regulation and Trick Box help to support our children to establish good habits and approaches, create intrinsic motivation and confidence to try new things in new ways and to develop a positive mind-set, building long term resilience and autonomy

Targeted Support – For children who may need individual or small group support and targeted interventions such as ELSA, FEIPS or Lego Group

Specialised Individual Support – support packages to meet individual needs following advice from outside agency services such as CAMHS, Primary Behaviour Service, Bereavement services and so on.

Trick Box – Building Healthy Life Habits

Trick Box is a simple, fun and effective whole school, whole family, emotional management and personal development programme, which supports children and their families.

To support children’s emotional health and wellbeing, we are going to be using the Trick Box programme throughout the school in the coming weeks and months introducing one trick each half term. The programme is designed to be used both at home and at school to give children strategies for developing resilience and effective communication.

Trick Box helps children to:

• Recognise and self-manage emotions
• Develop mindful awareness and mind-body connection
• Build awareness and choices around body language signals
• Create confident decision making
• Set and achieve positive goals
• Develop communication skills to enhance interpersonal relationships
• Problem solve and create solution thinking
• Create intrinsic motivation and the confidence to try new things in new ways
• Create long term personal autonomy and resilience

All of the above skills will be introduced and reinforced through sequential 15-minute habit forming tricks with one trick taught each half term (EYFS) or fortnightly (KS1) in school using simple, child-friendly trick cards. You will be able to find out what the tricks are in our weekly newsletter.

If you have any questions about Trick Box or want to find out more, please contact Susannah Jones (PSHE lead).                                                 

Zones of Regulation

We have introduced Zones of Regulation for all pupils at Freegrounds Infant School.

Zones of Regulation is:

‘A framework designed to foster self-regulation and emotional control’….. In simple terms it teaches children how to recognise different emotions and gives them strategies to help manage how they react or behave as a result of those emotions i.e. how to self-regulate.

Zones of Regulation categorizes all the different ways we feel and states of alertness into four coloured zones:

Support for families.

Hampshire County Council has partnered with the Solihull Approach to provide free, evidence-based online courses with practical tips and advice to boost parents' and carers' confidence, help them navigate family life, and strengthen their relationships. Whether you are a mum, dad, foster parents or grandparent, there is a course for you. Once registered, families receive unlimited access to the courses and can go back to them as their children grow. The interactive courses cover topics like:

·          Understanding your child with additional needs (0-19 years)

·          Understanding your child's mental health and wellbeing

·          Understanding the impact of the pandemic on your child/teenager

Developed by psychologists and professionals, they have been designed to help you understand your child's feelings, development and behaviour, as well as focus on your own feelings as you grow as a family.

Please visit https://www.hants.gov.uk/solihullapproach for further details and to sign up. They are all free!

External links to other agencies

Not fine in school

Most school-anxious/school refusing children do WANT to attend school however their difficulties and anxiety are overwhelming They care about their education and want to succeed, however they need understanding and support at home and at school. They may need adjustments to their daily routines, timetables, or even their school environment. Pressures to focus on attendance rather than the child’s needs can make things even harder to fix.

https://notfineinschool.co.uk/families

CAMHS

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are an NHS service that aims to help young people up to the age of 18 who are finding it hard to manage their emotional and psychological health, and who are suffering with acute, chronic and severe mental health problems.

CAMHS (hampshirecamhs.nhs.uk)

Hampshire Healthy Families

For all things Health and Families in Hampshire

https://www.hampshirehealthyfamilies.org.uk/

Family Lives

This website focuses on advice around family life, wellbeing, parenting, online safety and finance.

https://www.familylives.org.uk/

Hampshire Education Psychology Team

Should you wish to contact us directly, we look forward to you getting in touch by using our telephone support line which operates every Tuesday and Thursday 9.30am to 11.00am. (01962 876239) This is available for parents/carers, education setting staff, and other children’s services professionals working in Hampshire.

https://www.hants.gov.uk/educationandlearning/educationalpsychology/parents

School Nursing Team

This team can talk through any concerns you may have about your child.  For example: eating, sleeping, toileting or behaviour.

School Nursing :: Healthier Together (what0-18.nhs.uk)

Schools therapy service.

If you need to contact the Solent NHS Trust Children's Therapies Telephone Advice Line: 0300 300 2019. They are available Monday to Friday 8am – 5pm. Due to the very high demand on the NHS at the moment they are making appointments available for children with the highest therapy need first.

Therapies :: Healthier Together (what0-18.nhs.uk)

Place to Be 

Parenting advice from our child mental health experts. Practical tips to support children's wellbeing and behaviour.

https://parentingsmart.place2be.org.uk/