Holland Junior School is committed to supporting the physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing of our pupils and staff to ensure that the school is a community where everyone feels able to thrive. Positive mental and emotional wellbeing is essential if children and young people are to flourish, increase their resilience and lead fulfilling lives now and in the future.

At our school, we know that everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times anyone may need additional emotional support. We take the view that positive mental health and emotional wellbeing is everybody’s business and that we all have a role to play. 

We promote emotional wellbeing throughout our curriculum and are committed to improving what we do and how we do it. We are proud to have achieved the Wellbeing Award for Schools and we believe this demonstrates our commitment to the wellbeing of our school community. You can find our parent-friendly strategy statement below.

At Holland, we believe that teaching about mental health and emotional wellbeing as part of a comprehensive PSHE and RSE curriculum is vital. PSHE and RSE are central to the curriculum across the whole school and assists pupils to cope with the changes at puberty, introduces them to a wider world, help them manage transitions and enables pupils to make an active contribution to their communities. The concepts covered in PSHE include keeping safe and managing risk, identity, equality, managing feelings and emotions, relationships, change, resilience and being healthy, which includes physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. We aim to promote pupils’ wellbeing through an understanding of their own and others’ emotions and the development of healthy coping strategies. We take a whole school approach to promoting positive mental health, aiming to help children become more resilient, happy and successful and to work in a pro-active way to avoid problems arising. We do this by:

• Creating and applying consistent ethos, policies and behaviours that support mental health and resilience, and which everyone understands.
• Focusing on steps to wellbeing and ‘Zones of Regulation’.
• Helping children to develop social relationships, support each other and to seek help when they need it.
• Promoting self-esteem and ensuring children understand their own importance in the world.
• Helping children to be resilient learners and to manage setbacks.
• Teaching children social and emotional skills and an awareness of mental health.
• Identifying children who have mental health challenges and planning support to meet their needs, including working with specialist services, parents and carers.
• Supporting and training staff to develop their skills and their own resilience.
• Developing an open, supportive culture where it’s normal to talk about mental health.