Mental Health and Wellbeing at Bournemouth Park Academy

Senior Mental Health Lead: Miss Higgs

Mental health and wellbeing statement of intent

“Mental Health is a state of wellbeing in which the individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” (World Health Organisation 2014)

Moral purpose

Bournemouth Park Academy is passionate about making a difference to the lives of young people and all within the school community. As part of our school values and ethos of ‘Believe, Succeed, Together’, we intend to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community (children, staff, parents and carers) and recognise that mental health, wellbeing and emotional health are just as important as physical health. We understand that children’s mental health is a crucial factor to their overall wellbeing and can affect their learning and achievement. We believe with an ethos of collaborative teamwork, a steadfast commitment to giving young people the tools to achieve positive mental health and having a proactive rather than reactive response will go towards improving mental health and wellbeing within our school. Furthermore, we endeavour to incorporate the schools core values, resilience, collaboration, respect and curiosity in all of our curriculum subjects which will support the mental health and wellbeing of all children in every classroom. Whatever issues students, their families, the school, our team or the community face, we always support, react and pull together. Promoting a whole school approach towards mental health and wellbeing will go a long way to improve the mental health of all within our school setting.

What we aim to do:

• Make sure all children feel valued, feel safe and have a sense of belonging.
• Ensure all children feel comfortable speaking to a trusted adult about their problems.
• Challenge the stigma surrounding mental health.
• Empower children with tools they need to achieve healthy, happy mental health.
• Ensure positive mental health is promoted and valued.
• Ensure the child stays at the centre of every conversation.
• We prioritise those in most need, but we intervene with all.
• Highlight the importance of attendance- we can support and educate pupils who are in school.
• Young people learn best when they are given support, clear rules and expectations and simple consequences.
• Staff teach best when they are given support, when there are clear rules and expectations and simple consequences.
• We use evidence- based practice for all our interventions.
• Our inclusion team use a holistic approach to work closely to support the mental health needs of all our pupils and secure the appropriate intervention for each individual. 

We want all members of our school community to:

• Be happy and confident in themselves.
• Be able to express a range of emotions in a safe way.
• Be able to establish and maintain positive relationships with others.
• Be able to cope with the stresses of everyday life.
• Be able to deal with and manage times of stress and deal with times of change.
• Be able to learn and achieve.