Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing

What is Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing?

We all have mental health, just as we all have physical health. At Broomhill, we firmly believe in the importance of supporting every single person in our school community to be mentally healthy because our emotional wellbeing is just as important as our physical health. 

Being mentally heathy means that we feel positive about ourselves and our relationships with others whilst remembering that there are times where we all feel sad, frightened, unhappy and nervous and this is a completely normal part of life. Having good mental health means that we develop the skills and resilience to bounce back from these feelings and emotions and cope with the demands of life. Good mental health also means that we can identify when support is needed and ask others for help.

Often, life's events are beyond our control. At Broomhill, we prioritise the emotional wellbeing of all of our school community through a careful programme of activities and support to enable us all to manage these events successfully. We also like to use the term emotional fitness and through the well planned and targeted activities, our aim is to ensure we build the emotional fitness of our school community.  

What does Broomhill do?

We Broomhill, we offer a comprehensive range of activities and support to develop the emotional wellbeing of the whole school. This includes:

- Emotional fitness and mental health  activities in every class which take place at least 3x per week

- Additional physical activity for every class with the PE lead weekly

- Termly emotional fitness and mental health afternoons

- Literature is carefully picked to exploit learning opportunities 

- A dedicated mental health team who meet regularly

- All classes have an interactive feelings board where they can share how they are feeling

- A dedicated pastoral team. 

Emotional Fitness A-Z for positive mental health

Here at Broomhill Junior School, we are keen to develop the whole school communities understanding of mental health. Our aim is to provide children and staff with the tools to manage challenging times as well as strategies for maintaining good emotional fitness throughout their lives. The term 'emotional fitness' is the perfect way to change the way in which mental health can be perceived. As a Headteacher it is important to me that children are taught the skills to understand and manage their emotions in the same way we teach fronted adverbials and long multiplication. I believe that emotional and physical fitness go hand in hand. As a school we have been on a journey to develop, integrate and embed social and emotional education into our everyday school life. A-Z fitness has supported us on this journey. It just captures and embodies the theory in a simplistic way that everyone can access and then use. Every member of staff and pupil has received a copy of the book and will work through each letter developing a bank of resources and strategies that they can apply to their everyday life. Children and staff feel more comfortable and free to talk about how they are feeling and how they can support themselves and others to stay emotionally fit! 

Our Staff have received training on the best ways to use the book to help in their own lives as well as the children's lives. We want to ensure that everyone has methods they can use to support their own mental wellbeing which can be developed over the years. 

Thank you for our books Brigstow! 

We are not the only ones who feel that mental health and well-being is important. Brigstow Family Law Firm who also understand the importance of mental health and well-being have kindly donated a copy of A-Z Emotional Fitness for all the children that are joining us in year 3 (September 2022).

How can I Support my Emotional Wellbeing?

Here, you will find a variety of support and resources to use to support children's emotional wellbeing.

Films

· Inside out (understanding how perception can impact how we feel)

· Frozen (respecting others)

· Finding Nemo (dealing with loss and showing perseverance)

· Shrek (how we treat people / inclusion)

· Dumbo (bullying and inclusion)

· Up (resilience)

· WALL-E (independence)

· ET (friendship through differences)

· Wonder (bullying, inclusion and resilience)

Other Activities

Other activities proven to support children's wellbeing can include:
- Colouring and drawing
- Sport and exercise
- Writing
- Playing a board game
- Guided meditation - video below

Where can I go for more support?

Here, you will find some useful links to websites providing more information and support on mental health and emotional wellbeing.