Wellbeing

Wellbeing Award

We have been successful in achieving the Wellbeing Award for Schools. accreditation.  The award will recognise our commitment to promoting and protecting emotional wellbeing and mental health in our whole school community.

Vision Statement

At Oyster Park Primary Academy, we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for our whole school community (children, staff, parents and carers), and recognise how important mental health and emotional wellbeing is to our lives in just the same way as physical health. We recognise that children’s mental health is a crucial factor in their overall wellbeing and can affect their learning and achievement. All children go through ups and downs during their school career and some face significant life events.

We take a whole school approach to promoting positive mental health that aims to help children become more resilient, happy and successful and to prevent problems before they arise.

This encompasses seven aspects:

1. Creating an ethos, policies and behaviours that support mental health and resilience, and which everyone understands.

2. Helping children to develop social relationships, support each other and seek help when they need it.

3. Helping children to be resilient learners.

4. Teaching children social and emotional skills and an awareness of mental health.

5. Early identification of children who have mental health needs and planning support to meet their needs, including working with specialist services.

6. Effectively working with parents and carers including providing opportunities to develop their own knowledge and understanding around emotional wellbeing and mental health.

7. Supporting and training staff to develop their skills and their own resilience.

We also recognise the role that stigma can play in preventing understanding and awareness of mental health issues. We therefore aim to create an open and positive culture that encourages discussion and understanding of these issues.

Growth Mindset

At Oyster Park Primary Academy, we know that pupils who have a positive attitude towards their learning will make good progress and be successful. Consequently, instilling all our pupils with ‘growth mindsets’ continues to be a key priority for the school. We have introduced the theories of Dr Carol Dweck to staff and pupils and will continue to embed this practice within our school.

We want all of our pupils to relish challenges, embrace their mistakes as part of the learning process, value the importance of effort, respond carefully to feedback and take inspiration from others. This will help them to achieve, not only with us, but also within their future lives as adults.

Encouraging children to become confident and resilient learners.

We know that in order to fulfil the potential of our pupils and encourage them to become confident and resilient learners we, as a team of parents and staff, need to be modelling the mindset of a learner who is not afraid of making mistakes but who thrives upon them, knowing that this is all part of the learning process. The way in which we encourage children to learn and explore is vital to their success, not only at school but at home as well.

At Oyster Park, we consistently endeavour to challenge and develop the attitudes of all pupils and staff towards learning by considering what makes a successful learner. We have dedicated sessions in class to address what kind of learners we want to be and how we can positively approach challenges inside and outside the classroom.

Central to this attitude and approach to learning, are the theories and proven evidence of Growth Mindset. This is a term coined by psychologist Carol Dweck and her research has identified the characteristics of learners with a fixed and a growth mindset: