Support and Services Provided

Promoting good mental health and emotional resilience

A range of training / support options which will provide schools staff and young people with access to expert training, advice and guidance in addressing issues including:

  • Promoting good mental health and developing skills to promote improved emotional resilience amongst your pupils
  • Raising awareness of the issues with staff, increasing confidence and skills in identifying and supporting young people who may be displaying early signs of emerging mental health / emotional wellbeing difficulties
  • Engaging staff in dialogue about the issues and in supporting them to develop the skills to deliver practical and effective interventions with vulnerable young people
  • Developing confidence and self-esteem within young people and learning the ‘language’ to engage and support effectively
  • Developing the knowledge and skills of young people to enable them to recognise when emotional distress is emerging and equipping them with the confidence to seek help and to develop effective coping strategies

Behaviour management and cognitive development

  • Staff development sessions in managing challenging behaviour for secondary schools and KS2 pupils delivered by expert classroom practitioners can also be offered
  • These sessions will improve awareness of cognitive development and the relationship between social and emotional development and learning capacity and enable staff to respond effectively and with improved confidence, skills and resilience
  • Providing effective and practical interventions to deter low level disruption and manage challenging behaviour in the classroom

Improving pupil attendance

  • Raising attendance and improving in school strategies and approaches to this issue are essential elements of raising standards, academic attainment and effective safeguarding processes
  • We can provide schools with a full and comprehensive attendance audit service which will enable school leaders and governors to identify challenges, strengths and develop effective in school approaches to improving attendance at an individual, year group and whole school level
  • The audit will equip schools with the information neccessary to fully prepare for OFSTED

The attendance audit

The attendance audit will provide a thorough and detailed health check of school attendance approaches and will include:

  • Policy and procedures:   policy / procedures review and analysis; commentary and areas for improvement identified.
  • Data analysis of performance: trends and areas for action
  • Assessment of how leaders, staff, pupils and parents understand and engage in promoting attendance and tackling this issue through interviews and discussion
  • How the school promotes / recognises and incentivises good attendance
  • How the school uses sanctions and legal interventions to tackle pupil absence
  • Inspection readiness and areas for further consideration

The audit is a thorough process which will provide schools with a report, identification of areas for development and strengths and recommendations for future action.

We will also present the report to school leaders / Governors and facilitate a discussion to identify next steps if requested.

The audit will involve a 1.5 days in school and time to prepare the report and if requested, presentation at a SLT / Governing body meeting.

The audit will be undertaken by highly experienced and qualified attendance leaders, who have a thorough and detailed knowledge of attendance issues. 

Alternative provision and pathways

  • Supporting schools to identify and develop alternative options for pupils where existing provision is not successful and where alternative pathways may be appropriate
  • Sourcing, negotiating and quality assuring access to AP options for KS3/4 pupils
  • Working with colleagues in CYPS and other providers to develop packages / pathways for vulnerable and challenging young people
  • Supporting schools and Trusts to develop in school responses involving assessment of need, design and development of new provision / options and engagement with internal and external partners to develop capacity

Working with parents where pupil behaviour is a concern

  • Sessions for parent groups exploring developmental issues and how this influences children’s behaviour
  • Engaging with parents where mental health, self-confidence or esteem issues limit capacity and skills to manage behaviour
  • Providing parents with practical and effective solutions to managing behaviour, improving self-confidence and the support to vulnerable pupils

Structured, personalised ‘coaching’ and supervision

  • Supporting school leaders and key staff to manage and respond to demands and to improve resilience and capacity to support staff and pupils
  • Structured coaching delivered over 3-6 week sessions; personalised and responsive to individual needs with agreed outcomes and areas for discussion
  • Individual supervision, based upon reflection, responding to complex and emotive issues with school.  Personalised support which will promote staff confidence, skills and resilience

Staff training and awareness raising

Individual training and awareness sessions for both pupils and staff in the following areas are available. Sessions can be up to two hours in length and be designed to suit individual school needs and priorities.

Individually tailored programmes for pupils over a period of weeks can also be delivered.

  • The Ofsted Framework:
    Raising awareness of the issues and effective school approaches to mental health and developing resilience.
  • Promoting emotional resilience and self confidence
  • Mental health awareness; developing resilience and coping strategies
  • Identifying signs of depression and anxiety
  • Anger management
  • Self-esteem and feeling good
  • Self-harming behaviours
  • Developing healthy relationships and keeping safe
  • Legal highs and working with young people
  • Conflict resolution, restorative approaches to promote improved relationships

Additional Programmes and Intervention:
Emotional Wellbeing and Resilience

  • We can offer schools a range of additional programmes to support class groups or targeted groups of children and young people
  • These programmes are specifically designed to address emotional and mental health issues  and will equip young people with the language and understanding of how to recognise and respond to indicators of emotional distress and the confidence and skills to develop the resilience to overcome these challenges
  • Individual programmes include:
    Awareness raising and support for children
    The training / sessions available for staff can all be modified and developed to ensure effective delivery to young people and children within school settings.
    Additional packages available to support primary age pupils include:
    Self-esteem and emotional literacy for primary age pupils…Sunshine in My Tummy
    A bespoke and engaging 10 week programme (30 minutes per session) which can be delivered to 3 different class groups per morning / afternoon session using storytelling to identify and understand different emotions which will end with a drama based activity to ensure the issues explored are understood by the children involved.
    Drama / creative writing anti-bullying programme (primary to teenage years)
    Using poetry to introduce the perspective of a bully, the victim, his family and the on-looker to explore the emotional impact of bullying.  Participants will use drama techniques to develop the characters and story to move the character from a state of emotional danger to emotional safety. 

    The programme concludes with a showcase of work to parents and carers and the school receiving a book to document and evidence the process, creative writing and learning of the participants.  This is a 6 week programme of 1 hour per week support.

Mental and Emotional Health:
Peer Support Programme

  • A programme of five sessions of one hour per session; aimed at KS4 / 6th form students.  Based upon the ‘Youthnet’ model, previously successfully delivered via the Behaviour Improvement Programme (BIP), this programme will equip young people with the confidence and skills to recognise, manage and develop the resilience to address issues including:
    • Recognising mental / emotional health issues
    • Managing stress and anxiety
    • Dealing with and tackling bullying behaviours
    • Conflict resolution and restorative approaches
    • Developing confidence and self-esteem
  • The programme is delivered by skilled and experienced practitioners and will involve group discussions, group work and modelling of effective approaches to manage the issues described above
  • The programme will support young people to develop a range of skills and confidence in these areas and will provide schools with effective evidence of pupil engagement and involvement in addressing health issues at the time of any school review or inspection process