The Department for Education (DfE) recognises that “in order to help their pupils succeed, schools have a role to play in supporting them to be resilient and mentally healthy”. Here at Saltford C of E Primary School we embrace a whole school approach where all staff value and recognise the need to promote positive mental health and well-being in every child and adult. We place great importance on developing the whole child academically, socially and emotionally. The skills needed throughout life can be taught and learnt at any age; all aspects of a child’s experience in and out of school contribute to their personal and social development and we feel that it is essential that we share this role with parents, carers and families.

Who are the well-being team?

• Miss Natalie Jupp – PSHE Lead
• Mrs Gemma Godwin – Inclusion Lead/SENCO
• Mrs Melissa Brook  – PE/Health and Well-being Lead
• Mrs Pippa Saunders – Pastoral teaching assistant

All of the staff at Saltford C of E Primary School play a fundamental role in the well-being of our pupils and their families.

How do we provide well-being support at Saltford C of E Primary School?

• Well-being team helps to co-ordinate well-being activities and resources accessible for both pupils and staff.
• Signposting pupils and families to appropriate support, agencies and professionals outside of school.
• Access to Thrive assessment and intervention: we are a Thrive school with Thrive licensed practitioners (Mrs Gemma Godwin and Mrs Pippa Saunders). For more information about Thrive, see our parents' information leaflet. 
• Access to our Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) who is a trained Teaching Assistant who helps children and young people feel happy in school. and to reach their potential socially, emotionally and academically. The ELSA is trained to understand the barriers to learning that some children and young people might have and can help them with this. They can support children's emotional development and help them cope with life’s challenges.
   

• Individual work and group interventions for pupils around issues such as;
  • behaviour
  • self-esteem
  • anger management
  • bereavement
  • family breakdowns
  • anxiety
  • social communication
• Designated space for Nurture activities.
• Staff training on mental health, safeguarding and protecting vulnerable children.

Saltford has a proactive approach to supporting our children and their families, including:

• A team of trained Safeguarding Leads and a Safeguarding Governor
• A Nurture Room
• One-to-one teaching assistants who support specific, emotionally vulnerable children
• A dedicated pastoral support Teaching assistant who is Thrive and ELSA trained
• Small group interventions for groups to develop social skills, self-esteem and emotional literacy
• PSHE Scheme that promotes a ‘mindfulness’ approach to lessons
• Whole school assembly themes to promote and support SEMH (Social Emotional Mental Health)
• Personal and social education lessons and circle time sessions in all year groups
• Annual workshops, events and assemblies run by NSPCC and other outside agencies
• A comprehensive range of health and sporting activities across the curriculum and in after-school clubs.

Getting enough sleep is vitally important. Many effects of a lack of sleep, such as feeling grumpy and not working at your best, are well known, but research also shows that regular poor sleep can put you at risk of serious medical conditions, including obesity, heart disease and diabetes – and it shortens your life expectancy.

It's now clear that a solid night's sleep is essential for a long and healthy life.

Below are the NHS sleep recommendations for primary age children: 

4 years: 11 hours 30 minutes

5 years: 11 hours

6 years: 10 hours 45 minutes

7 years: 10 hours 30 minutes

8 years: 10 hours 15 minutes

9 years: 10 hours

10 years: 9 hours 45 minutes

11 years: 9 hours 30 minutes

The Sleep Charity has a range of information about better sleep. They have a dedicated phone line that you can call for help and advice about sleep problems: 03303 530 541 between 7pm and 9pm, Sunday to Tuesday and Thursday and Wednesday, 9am – 11am.

Eating a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of maintaining good health, and can help you feel your best.

This means eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions, and consuming the right amount of food and drink to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

For information on eating healthily, click on the images below.

Children need to be active for 60 minutes a day. Sports and active hobbies are a great way to get some exercise — they don't need to take up a lot of time or money. Exercise helps to maintain a healthy mind as well as a healthy body.

Click on the images below for links to great ideas about how to get fit and have fun.

Understanding how to look after our bodies and minds is crucial for our wellbeing. In the UK, 1 in 9 children aged 5-15 experience mental health difficulties. These can include depression, anxiety and conduct disorder, and are often a direct response to what is happening in their lives.

In this section, you will find a links to resources to support positive mental health, as well as information about common mental health difficulties and links to sources of advice and support.

Kooth: free, safe and anonymous online support for young people

Childline: a free, private and confidential service online, on the phone, anytime.

CAMHS: guidance for support with mental health

Click here for a list of apps and websites to support emotional well-being.

Anxiety

Signs to look out for in your child are:

• finding it hard to concentrate
• not sleeping, or waking in the night with bad dreams
• not eating properly
• quickly getting angry or irritable, and being out of control during outbursts
• constantly worrying or having negative thoughts
• feeling tense and fidgety, or using the toilet often
• always crying
• being clingy
• complaining of tummy aches and feeling unwell

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/anxiety-in-children/

https://tutorful.co.uk/guides/the-expert-guide-to-help-your-child-with-anxiety

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/publications/anxious-child

https://www.moodcafe.co.uk/media/19579/cyp_parents_1_2_web.pdf

Depression

• sadness, or a low mood that doesn't go away
• being irritable or grumpy all the time
• not being interested in things they used to enjoy
• feeling tired and exhausted a lot of the time

Your child may also:

• have trouble sleeping or sleep more than usual
• not be able to concentrate
• interact less with friends and family
• be indecisive
• not have much confidence
• eat less than usual or overeat
• have big changes in weight
• seem unable to relax or be more lethargic than usual
• talk about feeling guilty or worthless
• feel empty or unable to feel emotions (numb)
• have thoughts about suicide or self-harming
• actually self-harm, for example, cutting their skin or taking on overdose

Coping with low mood

A Parent's Guide to Depression

To join Saltford School’s Smartphone Free WhatsApp group please use this link https://chat.whatsapp.com/ImV2cA6zseJKGoORLz42Ac or scan the barcode below.

If you’re reading this information – thank you!  There has been a huge amount in the news recently about the idea of a smartphone free childhood. A good starting point for learning more about where this has come from, more recently, is an engaging presentation by psychologist Jonathan Haidt - https://youtu.be/TEZHSxq3Nw0?si=M-BANgQFpzD7ki21

A group of Saltford School parents from Y1 to Y5 have come together to talk about this and think through how some of the themes that come up in this presentation might impact our children, and whether there is anything that we could do about it in our own community. 

Having discussed this for many weeks, and noting the growing interest throughout the country, we are working to share key information with all parents and to open up the conversation even further. We’re delighted that Mrs Sage has booked a presentation from PAPAYA (Parents Against Phone Addiction in Young Adolescents) on October 3^rd, which is focused on helping families to thrive in the digital age. There will be more information on this in the autumn term.

The key issues we have discovered relate to mental health and well-being, impact on focus and engagement, both socially and in education, risks of exposure to harmful content and the step away from a play-based childhood too soon. 

We will monitor the growing movement to increase the age children have smartphones (as opposed to phones without internet / app access), but if you are interested in looking into this yourself, we have done and found the following really useful to find initial information:

• Sign up for the newsletters on the Smartphone Free Childhood website - https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/
• Join the local WhatsApp group for more local and relevant information; https://linktr.ee/smartphonefreechildhood
• Join Saltford CE Primary School WhatsApp group within the Bath Whatsapp Community so we can share information relevant to our kids in our community https://tr.ee/BT9zXrgriM

We recognise that this is an emotive subject and that everyone’s circumstances are different. We hope that the information we share will empower everyone with the information so that they can make their own informed choices about what is right for their children and families. Lianne Lugg, Jess Flanagan, Karen Brookes-Lovell, Gina Marchesi, Andy Marchesi, Nick Sladek, Ruth Moody, Louise Cornish & Cheralyn Baines-Dark.

Reducing our time on smartphones to win back time for us and for our children

A lot of the information promoting holding off on giving smartphones to our children for as long as possible is also relevant to us as adults. How many times do you end up feeling stressed when scrolling and being constantly pinged at, with the (possibly misplaced) belief that we have to respond immediately?  Within the Saltford Smartphone Free Childhood group we have all certainly started to take a look at our relationships with our phones since reading more and many of us have taken the time to try and do something to reduce our screen time.

Read on for some simple ways in which we can notice and reduce our own screen time, not only for our own mental health, but also to try and start setting a more positive example for our kids. How can we tell our kids they need to hold off on having a smartphone if we spend all our time on ours, even if it is for work and making plans to keep their busy social lives ticking! Do we really want to send them the message that spending time with our phones is more important than spending time with them?

As parents, how can we look after our own mental health and wellbeing?

Andy Marchesi, Saltford parent, Personal Development Coach and Therapist writes:

Most of us are extremely busy juggling so many things with what seems like no time. Are we busier than a generation or two before us, though? Well quite possibly, and in large part due to the advent of the email and then the smartphone. We are now, if we allow it, expected to be ‘on-call’ 24/7 making it very difficult to preserve some of our own mental battery and space away from technology to be present. It is important to make sure we have some moments though throughout the day when we can recharge ourselves, and to start setting a better example for the young people in our lives, that not everything needs to be done immediately and not everything needs to revolve around a smartphone.

So here are 10 hacks you might want to consider that I have found helpful for me and the people I work with:

1. Set your phone screen to turn on to ‘Night Shift’ mode automatically between 9pm – 8am as a reminder not to look at it between those hours unless necessary.
2. Consider, like me, putting all social media apps in separate folder called ‘Regret’ to help steer you away from them. You could also remove the apps from your home-screen so you have to work through a few more clicks to access them – this can reduce the ease of a quick click and scroll pretty successfully.
3. Turn all news feed and social media platform notifications off and consider scheduling notifications at certain times in the day for other apps.
4. Turn on aeroplane mode or ‘do not disturb’ when out walking / with family / friends and you want to continue to use your smartphone as a camera!
5. Take moments in a shopping queue, at the school gates (we should be thinking about not being on them at all at school -  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8887dd38pzo)  or whilst making a hot drink to have a micro break, take some deep breaths and just ‘be’ rather than scroll through a feed.
6. A phone free Friday or Sunday always recharges the mental / emotional battery (https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/phonefreefriday).
7. Put your phone in another room whilst in meetings, playing with kids, or eating. Some people have recommend locking your phone away, or using other devices to make it harder to access your smartphone.
8. Allow yourself to get bored once a day…. stimulating the creative in you!
9. Programme your mind before bed for a minimum of 20 minutes by doing chores without your phone, then reading and listening to music. Aim for an hour of no screen time before bedtime – this is probably one most of us will struggle with!!!
10. Sign up to the Guardian’s Reclaim your brain for tips once a week           https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/14/sign-up-to-reclaim-your-brain-our-free-email-to-help-you-scroll-less-and-live-more?utm_term=6666de94986967f70434cad5052d951d&utm_campaign=ReclaimYourBrain&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=reclaimyourbrain_email  and a good book to read is ‘Digital Minimalism’ by Cal Newport, which enables you to use your smartphone and tech in a way that works for you, not that takes over. 

First we form habits then they form us. Start with picking one phone hack, then add another and see how it makes you feel as you start to take control of how you rest and how you recharge yourself.