Children’s Mental Health Week Spotlight: Heath Hayes Academy

Children’s Mental Health Week Spotlight: Heath Hayes Academy

Sometimes it takes just small changes to a school’s approach to make a significant impact on the emotional wellbeing of their pupils. Mary-Ellen Krause, Inclusion Lead explains:

“As a school we wanted our approach to children’s mental health to be proactive, rather than managing crises or responding to behaviour issues. As a result, we established our Relational Care Team (RCT), consisting of five members of staff with the role (in addition to their day jobs!) of supporting children with their unmet needs.

The RCT look for children who might need additional support, whether that’s due to bereavement, mental health issues, concerns with their learning, or anything else. Each member of the team wears a star on their lanyard so any child can identify them and know they can come to them for help.

So far, the impact has been incredibly positive. When it comes to dropping children off for the day, particularly on a Monday or after a holiday, they can be unsettled, but with two members of the RCT on the gate they are far more likely to be happier and start their day more smoothly. Having that friendly face right at the start means they know there’s someone there in case of any issues.

It’s also hugely helped across the school with any incidences of low-level unwanted behaviour. Because our pastoral support actively identifies any potential issues and mitigates them in advance, a child who is struggling with their learning can access this support and get themselves back in the right mindset to learn.

We’ve noticed a reduction in children coming to us in crisis and we’ve been able to identify patterns which has proven incredibly effective. We can notice an issue brewing and can often ‘nip these in the bud’.”

The school has plans to develop its Relational Care Team further.

“We already run a ‘soft start’ on Friday mornings for children with SEND, attachment issues or trauma, where they start the day in our nurture provision. It’s been really effective and parent feedback has been glowing about how much of a difference it makes.

That’s why we want to run this on a daily basis, with a member of the RCT overseeing it, to make sure these children start every school day at their absolute best.

In addition, after the February half term, we’re going to look at organising a separate dining room for pupils with sensory needs, who might struggle with a busy dining room. Again, a member of the RCT can oversee this and make sure these children can eat their lunch in peace, and so be in a far better mindset for their afternoon lessons.

These might look like small tasks, but their impact can be tremendous in supporting all our children to feel valued and to know we are actively looking to make the school environment as supportive as possible for them. Every member of the RCT wants our pupils to feel welcome, and ready to learn.”

Children’s Mental Health Week Spotlight: Camulos Academy

Children’s Mental Health Week Spotlight: Camulos Academy

Whilst waiting lists were long before March 2020, one of the consequences of the pandemic has been a tremendous backlog in accessing external services to support pupils’ mental health. As a result, Camulos Academy has worked to train up their staff to develop a model of internal support to ensure pupils are able to reach their full potential.

Sam Greatorex, SENDCo at Camulos explains, “Our staff are very good at noticing triggers and signs of potential distress among our pupils. We’ve done a lot of training on this in the past and it has really paid off. Teachers are very quick to come and say they have a child who is struggling, meaning we can move quickly to see if they need an intervention, or a programme of support put in place.”

Programmes include speech and language interventions to enable pupils to have the vocabulary to express their emotions, as well as training a member of staff as an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant to help children develop their emotional and social skills.

“We are in the process of training up two members of staff on Mental First Aid courses, and our Headteacher is a Mental Health First Aider. These are vital roles where they can spot the signs of mental health issues and have the skills to support someone in crisis. It also means raising awareness around mental health for both staff and pupils and reducing any stigma around mental health.”

Another support mechanism in place, funded by the school, is a play therapist who comes in every week to work with pupils who need more focused support. If children are struggling to engage with their classes, they’ll be referred to the therapist for an initial six-week block. This has proven to have a huge impact in helping these pupils regulate their emotions, and while they may still have their ‘blips’, it’s a significant improvement in helping them concentrate in class.

Despite all these measures the school recognises that some children may still need more professional support through accessing CAMHS. However, with external support still difficult to access, by developing a model of internal support the school has embedded a supportive and caring ethos throughout the school.

Always looking to improve, the school has more plans in place to enhance mental health support for their pupils. “We want to build on our provision by training staff on Trauma Perceptive Practice. This helps staff understand more about the neurobiology behind pupil behaviours, why different situations cause pupils to react in different ways, and how these are influenced by the traumas they’ve experienced. It essentially helps staff understand that pupils aren’t misbehaving because they’re naughty, but rather because there are underlying issues that they need to explore.

These could be previous traumas, attachment issues, or emotional concerns. The programme is non-punitive and is designed to help staff identify certain triggers in their pupils and then approach them in a more compassionate fashion.”

The Headteacher and SENCo are currently training on the programme and will look to embed it among the rest of the staff over the course of the summer term.

It’s just one more example of the school looking at how they can mitigate the impact of losing outside support. With schools across the country struggling to access external services, Camulos have had to think harder about how they can actively widen the support they can offer ‘in-house’. “Our school culture is built around inclusion and putting in the work to help our pupils overcome any barriers to learning and developing a strong internal model of support is central to this.”

Children’s Mental Health Week Spotlight: Beccles Primary Academy

Children’s Mental Health Week Spotlight: Beccles Primary Academy

Beccles Primary Academy works hard to implement best practice in mental health provision. Their aim is to develop and embed a culture where mental health and wellbeing sits at the heart of school life.

This is evident in their commitment and drive to achieve the Wellbeing Award for Schools (assessment is due in June). At the start of their journey, the school evaluated their provision to identify their strengths and areas for improvement. This included gathering feedback from key stakeholders (pupils, parents, staff) to ensure a whole-school approach.

“We received a flood of suggestions, which have proven incredibly useful, and we have already been able to act on them.” Sue Manders, Mental Health Champion and Family Wellbeing Lead at Beccles explains. “As an example, we have started to train pupil Wellbeing Champions – four Year 5 pupils who are trained to offer support to their peers in a more informal fashion than asking staff for help. They will be a regular source of low-level support to our wider pupil body and will form a central part of our strategies to support pupils’ emotional wellbeing.”

Additionally, the school works with a specialist mental health school support worker who comes in on a monthly basis to act as a sounding board for staff if they have any concerns about children. They also meet with parents to support them, and recently led a three-session anxiety course for parents. “With mental health services so stretched at the moment, having her as a resource where we can call her and say we’re worried about a child and ask for her advice, is a tremendous help.”

Beccles, like an increasing number of REAch2 schools, has also tapped into the power of pets in the classroom. Statistics show time and time again that animals can help relieve stress and anxiety in children, and can regulate breathing and heart rates. Animals have been known to help calm children during panic attacks, and can be considered their friends, helping them feel less alone. Staff recognise that the school’s chickens and rabbits can be a great tool in helping the children regulate their emotions which allows a restorative approach to behaviour management to take place.

Another innovation to compliment the school’s work to support the local community, is the practical provision of what is called The School Shop. With the news full of reports about the cost-of-living crisis, the school is clear about the link worrying over rising costs may have on the emotional health of families. According to Aisling Traynor, Head of Advice and Training for the charity Mental Health UK, “Money and mental health problems are often interlinked, and together these issues can create a worrying cycle that can lead to problems in other parts of our lives, putting stress on our relationships and negatively impacting our wellbeing.”

Sue explains, “The name is slightly misleading, as we don’t ask for payment from parents for anything we offer here, but instead we use it as a means of ensuring our pupils and their families never have to go without. The Shop is open two days a week and offers a whole range of provisions. We receive donations from a local food bank, from Morrisons, and even a local farm shop which kindly offers fresh produce for our community. Parents are encouraged to come in and take what they need, and we’ve worked hard to make sure it is a judgement-free zone, so no one feels unable to access this service. As a school we also provide uniform items at the shop, as we know this can build into a significant additional cost for families. It means that our pupils can come to school looking their best, and no one feels ashamed if their family is struggling financially.”

Removing stigma around mental health is a key part of the work the school has done to develop a positive culture which regards the emotional wellbeing and mental health of their community, as the responsibility of all.

“What is great to see, is that the Shop has really started to become a community hub, and a number of parents will come in just for a cup of tea and a chat. It’s really helped us develop links with our families, and we know how important these improved relationships are in supporting their children.”

These improved relationships have also enabled the school to introduce parents to the mental health specialist so that they can access support from her, or even just have an informal chat if they have any worries.

Beyond this, the school has plans to build on their school ‘shop’ even further. “We are putting plans in place to host a Toddler Group there as we know that very young children have really suffered during the pandemic. It will be great to open this up to younger siblings and other young children in the area. Our experience so far has shown us how important having the shop is to our wider community and to bringing them into our school.”

Children’s Mental Health Week Spotlight: Aerodrome Academy

Children’s Mental Health Week Spotlight: Aerodrome Academy

According to research published by Place2Be and NAHT, the vast majority of staff working in UK schools (95%) have noticed increased levels of pupil anxiety since the start of the school year.

This is certainly the experience of Head teacher Zoe Foulsham who shares the view that the impact of the pandemic is still being felt in schools.

“As a result of Covid-19 and the national lockdowns, we have seen children more likely to struggle with their emotional wellbeing. This can mean them being withdrawn, anxious, or suffering from trauma-related behaviours, such as being hyper-vigilant or struggling to maintain focus.”

The school’s response is to continue their focus on a whole school approach to addressing the increased need amongst their pupils. Staff have high levels of training for overseeing pupils’ emotional wellbeing. This isn’t just the occasional CPD session, but rather the result of a consistent conversation around mental health and wellbeing. New staff are inducted in this when they join, but they also learn over time through seeing existing staff talk about, and towards children to see how they are treated with respect.

This culture is reflected in the school’s behaviour management approaches. When unwanted behaviours arise in children, staff look deeper to understand why this is happening, and if there are any traumas that they can be supported with. The approach is always pastoral rather than punitive.

Behaviour is managed through dialogue with teacher and child, it is not a shame-based approach which highlights children who have misbehaved. However poor the behaviour, there is never a public audience to approaching it, but instead it’s a deeper conversation to understand the underlying reasons behind the behaviour.

Vicky Rhodes Assistant Head and SENCO, explains that a key element to this is the use of Zones of Regulation across the school. “This teaches children emotional literacy, emotional support strategies, and helps them understand how they can actively work on supporting their own mental health.”

The teaching team also have regular pastoral meetings, where a close look is taken at children who have displayed emotional behaviours to determine what support they need. One option is encouraging children to work with the learning mentor for a lunchtime or playtime session. This offers a relaxing and informal space where children can talk about any difficulties while doing a range of activities, whether that’s football, table tennis, drawing or even cookery (whatever they are most likely to respond well to). Another welcome member of the pastoral team is Wilson the dog who has been a part of the school for 5 years. He is taken for daily walks with Zoe and pupils who need pastoral support.

The school has more formalised external support in some cases. But this is complicated by the fact that the capacity just isn’t there these days outside the school. Vicky Rhodes highlights the national shortage of Educational Psychologists for example, with provision in their borough halved in recent months. This is reflected in the national picture, with only 23% of staff surveyed by Place2Be, saying they had regularly been able to access specialist support for pupils with mental health needs.

Zoe Foulsham is resolute in the school’s response to this, “We are willing to dedicate a significant part of our budget to bring in external support, but if we can’t find the people, then we will have to keep on supporting our children ourselves. Putting their wellbeing at the heart of our school is our first priority.”

REAch2 Announces Cathie Paine As New Chief Executive

REAch2 Announces Cathie Paine As New Chief Executive

REAch2 Academy Trust is pleased to announce Cathie Paine as our new CEO. She will be replacing Sir Steve Lancashire, who is leaving after 10 years at the helm.

Cathie Paine is an exceptional leader with a long record of securing educational improvements at school and system leadership level and since 2012 has played a pivotal role as Deputy Chief Executive of the REAch2 Trust, creating the design of the Trust and overseeing its growth.

Appointed in 1998 to her first headship in a large school in the Ofsted “special measures” category, Cathie was at the time the youngest headteacher in England. She transformed the school, leading it to become “Good” in just four terms. Shaped by this, Cathie retains her passion for enabling children to flourish in an environment of outstanding practice.

This commitment to providing exceptional opportunities for learning is at the heart of the REAch2 model for school improvement through support, challenge and collaboration. The results speak for themselves with 87% of academies that have been inspected by Ofsted since joining REAch2, now graded as “Good” or “Outstanding” schools. To put this in context, just 17% of schools were “Good” or “Outstanding” before joining the Trust and 49% were “Inadequate”.

Gavin Robert, Chair of REAch2 said:

“We are confident that, in Cathie’s excellent hands, REAch2 has an exciting future and – thanks to our hard-working, dedicated staff – it will continue to benefit the children, families and communities within its reach. Both I and the whole Trust Board look forward to supporting Cathie in the development of a continued compelling vision for the Trust.”

In response to her appointment, Cathie said: “I am absolutely delighted to be appointed as CEO and I look forward to building on the strengths of the first ten years. We will continue our unremitting commitment to the children’s education and will broaden our horizons to respond to wider challenges, ensuring that tens of thousands of children are fully prepared for the changing world around them.”

 

REAch2 Marks World Teachers’ Day 2021 By Applauding How Their Family Of Schools Adapted To Remote Teaching During The School Closures

REAch2 Marks World Teachers’ Day 2021 By Applauding How Their Family Of Schools Adapted To Remote Teaching During The School Closures

Without a doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed quite a few things, but for parents perhaps more than anything else it has proved the true value of teachers. Social media platforms were full of eye-opening tweets and hilarious memes expressing just how much teachers were worth.

In all seriousness, however, for teachers, remote learning became an overnight top priority and one that was crucial to get right. Educators across the country were having to learn new ways of teaching that hadn’t been experienced before.

In REAch2, across all 60 of our schools, a variety of online tools were being used but colleagues felt that they could and should be doing more for their children to access high-quality teaching and learning, albeit from the confines of their homes.

Enter Phoenix Software, which delivered bespoke training to enable our schools to develop their remote teaching strategies using a range of remote teaching tools all available on Microsoft teams.

Whilst ‘ confidence in pandemic teaching strategies’ is not something that our teachers would have predicted to be putting on their CVs a few years ago, it is something that they should be hugely proud of. We certainly are.

So to all our teachers, school leaders, the central team staff that supported the development of our remote offer, and to Phoenix software who improved our skills, knowledge, and confidence in remote teaching strategies, a very happy World Teachers’ day to you all.

Academy trust installs community fridges to feed hungry pupils

Academy trust installs community fridges to feed hungry pupils

Teachers say they’re encountering more and more pupils coming to school hungry – prompting one academy trust to install community fridges to help feed youngsters and their parents.

The pilot scheme is being tried out at five primary schools in Suffolk and Essex which are part of the Reach2 Academy Trust.

If it proves to be a success, it could be rolled out to all 59 of its academies across the region.

An image of an open fridge showing fruit and vegetables inside.

Steve Lancashire, Chief Executive Officer of Reach2 Academy Trust, said during a recent visit to one of the trust’s schools, he was left “heartbroken” by one boy’s story.

“I was in one of our schools on Monday and I sat next to a little boy to have a breakfast club. He said to me ‘I’m hungry because I didn’t eat last night‘.

“I asked him why was that and he said ‘my mum didn’t have any food in and she didn’t have any money to buy any last night‘.

“Of course that’s heartbreaking and to hear that, as an educationalist, we want to do something about it.”

– Sir Steve Lancashire, Chief Executive, REAch2 Academy Trust

Unity Primary Academy in Colchester is one of the five schools trialling the community fridges.

The community fridge at Unity Academy Primary in Colchester Credit: ITV News Anglia

(The community fridge at Unity Academy Primary in Colchester Credit: ITV News Anglia)

Its catering manager Chelsey Gardner says stories of hunger are becoming far too common – and no longer surprise her.

“We have children that we know come from certain households that struggle a little bit. We recognise that and we tend to give those children a little bit of extra food, a little bit of extra attention – send them home with a full belly.

“This is a vital scheme. With Universal Credit and the poverty rates, it’s needed even more than ever along with hunger clubs in the holidays.

“It used to surprise me but maybe not so much anymore. We’re seeing it more and more of the time. I’m used to it now.”

– Chelsey Gardner, Catering Manager, Unity Primary Academy, Colchester

The community fridges are stocked using leftover food from the school kitchens and aim to provide nutritious food for families who need some extra help. They include fruit and vegetables, rice, milk and eggs.

Schools hope to be as discreet as possible, encouraging children to talk to a teacher and keeping the fridges in areas that will not attract attention from their peers.

According to charity the Trussell Trust, the use of food banks in the East is continuing to rise.

Last year 156,000 food parcels were handed over in this region.

Essex received the most, with around 16,000 parcels given to children alone. In Norfolk, more than 8,000 of the 15,000 food parcels went to young people, and in Suffolk, 6,200 emergency supplies were handed out – with around 3,800 of them going to children.

Reach2 Academies are not the first schools in the region to feel the need to feed pupils and their families.

Last year, headteacher Debbie Whiting revealed she had set up a food bank at North Denes Primary in Great Yarmouth for families in poverty.

Further Information

This story was first published on itv.com on 18th October 2019 at 6.31pm.

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2019-10-18/academy-trust-installs-community-fridges-to-feed-hungry-pupils/

Life is an Adventure, School should be too!

Life is an Adventure, School should be too!

Of course, it's essential that our children can read, write and add up to the level that you would expect for their age, however at REAch2, the school has always been about so much more.

Think back – what do you remember about your primary school days?

Was it phonics lessons or learning how to do long division? Was it a brilliant school trip where you camped under the stars, built a raft, or crossed a lake?.

These types of great opportunities – the memorable experiences that cement themselves into your psyche – happen in every school. What’s different for us is that we consciously codify it into a set of promises so that it becomes something that EVERY child is entitled to and “11 before 11” is the way we do this.

11 before 11 is a set of promises that help our children to be in the driving seat in their own lives, a series of seminal experiences that we want every child in the REAch2 family to have experienced before they leave us to go to secondary school-aged 11.

Across each of our 60 schools, we are ambitious for our children to have broad horizons in life and high aspirations for themselves. We want our children to be inspired and challenged so that each one can develop their unique potential to the full. 11 before 11 takes our children beyond the usual, to open opportunities in life and inspire them to move forward in their own life’s adventure.

We are incredibly proud of “11 before 11”. We know the impact that it has had so far, and strongly believe that its importance has only grown because of Covid-19 and the impact that the pandemic has had on society, on our communities, and on our families. We will continue to invest in delivering it so that every child’s experience of school with us is exceptional and memorable for all the right reasons.

Click here to find out more about our 11 Before 11 programme.

REAch2 Academies Appear in Steve McQueens Year 3 Exhibition

REAch2 Academies Appear in Steve McQueens Year 3 Exhibition

Turner Prize-winning artist and Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen has unveiled his epic portrait of London’s Year 3 pupils at the Tate Britain.

Using the traditional school class photograph, the artwork spans the length of the Sculpture Gallery and is one of the most ambitious portraits of children ever undertaken in the UK. Over 76,000 children across 1,500 schools took part in this unique piece of artwork which offers a glimpse of London’s future generations.

REAch2 Academies who took part include Aerodrome Academy, Chapel End Junior Academy, Dorothy Barley Junior Academy, Langtons Junior Academy, Robert Fitzroy Academy, St Marks CofE Academy and Tidemill Academy.

The exhibition is free and runs until 3 May 2020. Every afternoon from 14.15–17.45 during holidays and at weekends there will be large magnifiers operating in the Steve McQueen Year 3 exhibition, allowing photos at any height to be seen in greater detail.

For more information, please visit the Tate Britain’s website www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/steve-mcqueen-year-3

Images © Tate