Beighton Nursery and Infant School

Beighton Nursery and Infant School
Beighton Nursery and Infant School

Healthy Minds

Beighton is a Healthy Minds School. In May 2022 we completed a school-based training project working closely with the Sheffield Child & Adult Mental Health Service. This service aims to support the emotional health and wellbeing of children.

Being a Healthy Minds School we ensure emotional resilience is at the heart of children's health and wellbeing and recognises its impact on their learning, attainment, behaviour and future employability.

All members of our school community are considered in our HM initiative, with the priorities set out below;

Priority 1 - Developing resilience & providing support with emotional & mental well-being in school.

Priority 2 - Mental health & emotional support and guidance for parents to improve outcomes for the family.

Priority 3 - Promoting a positive, supportive, reflective ethos across school, including well-being support for school staff.

Health Minds Champions

As part of our Healthy Minds Initiative we have a team of Healthy Minds Champions who work with the Senior Mental Health Lead in school, Miss Hindley. The team work together to plan and deliver various projects to look at ways to improve children’s health and well-being across school.

The Champions are selected through an application and election process. Each potential champion share their reasons for wanting to be selected as a HM Champion and why they feel they would make a strong HM Champion, with each class then carrying out an anonymous vote.

Here are our 2023-24 Healthy Minds Champion

 

Here are some of the Health Minds Projects we have completed so far…

Empathy Superhero Project

The Champions completed some learning around the importance of having Empathy. We created posters and planned and delivered a whole school assembly to help others understand the importance of recognising and responding to the feelings of others.

 

Improving Well-Being at Lunchtimes

The Healthy Minds Champions carried out a survey across school, asking children about their lunchtime experiences.  We analysed the results of our surveys and identified that some children found it difficult to know what to do at lunchtime and who to play with. We considered the activities available and improved these by providing more activities and games to encourage more social opportunities and team games.

Well-Being Walls - When do we feel in the Green Zone?

The HM Champions delivered an assembly focusing on the Zones of Regulation and how we use this tool in school to support our emotional literacy.  The Zones of Regulation help us to think about and share how we are feeling with others.  All children in school thought about activities or things that help us to feel in the Green Zone.  Each class then created their own Well-Being Wall, drawing, painting or writing about what helped them to feel in the Green Zone.

Have a look around school at our Well-Being Walls!

 

 Children's Mental Halth Week - Green Zone Day

The Champions worked together to plan various activities to celebrate and recognise Children’s Mental Health Week.   They shared daily online Wake and Shake and Mindfulness activities to help children stay in the Green Zone, and feel ready to learn.  We finished the week with our Green Zone Day where all children and staff were invited to come to school wearing something green – to help us think about and remember the importance of staying in the Green Zone.  We also thought about and practiced the strategies we can use to get back to the Green Zone if there are times where we aren’t feeling ‘just right’.

 

Sunshine Circle Time Project

Another initiative that was planned and rolled out during Children’s Mental Health Week was our Sunshine Circle Time Project.

We use various strategies in school to help us stay in the Green Zone.  An important strategy we use in school are Sunshine Circle Times.  These help us to feel emotionally regulated, provides a safe space to check in with how we are all feeling, to connect to others and respond to how others are feeling.

The Champions gave each class a Sunshine Circle Time to carry out.  We then compiled a video which included each class demonstrating their Sunshine Circle and shared the importance of Sunshine Circle Times to help us all keep Healthy Minds.