The well-being of our pupils is our number one priority and we have a strong team of teaching and support staff, as well as numerous links to external support, who are available to help pupils and families with any issues they may be facing.

Please contact your child's class teacher in the first instance or their Year Leader, if you require any help or advice regarding pupil wellbeing.  Alternatively, you may wish to contact the office for advice about the best person to speak to.

You can find a range of support services here, which you may find useful. 

 

Wellbeing Award for Schools

On 30th March 2023, we were proud to be awarded the highly regarded Wellbeing Award for Schools, developed in partnership with the National Children’s Bureau and Optimus Education.  It recognises the outstanding work being done to promote mental health and wellbeing within our school community.

We have been working on increasing and improving our wellbeing support for children who need additional care, particularly recognising those children who are struggling more than ever as a long-term effect of school lockdowns and COVID. 

Working towards the award has helped us to focus on enhancing our positive culture, placing mental health and wellbeing at the very heart of school life.

Alongside the dedicated work with the children, we have been mindful of the increasing strains put on staff due to a lack of external services and support.  Furthermore - seen much less frequently in other settings - we have also focused our energies on supporting families and parents through our Family Link Worker, Tina Maxey, whose role includes delivering Parent Workshops and direct 1-2-1 work.  Some of the fabulous parental feedback includes:

• “Learning that others are in the same situation is really helpful “
• “Having new strategies to try is really good”
• "Just to be able to talk to people who understand"
• "Not to feel judged"
• “Things feel more manageable, and I feel more in control”

We started working towards the award, not simply to achieve another certificate, but to recognise the excellent work that was already happening across the school.  We opted for the advisor-led approach so we could learn from an expert and identify the gaps in our provision.  We were lucky enough to be assigned a wonderful advisor who helped us throughout the 2-year process.

Initially, we met with our advisor who explained the 8 areas of the accreditation.  We completed a thorough audit and any gaps that were identified became our action plan.  A Wellbeing Change Team was created which included the staff, parents, pupils and a trustee representative.  The Change team met regularly to review the action plan and new “Wellbeing at SJA” ideas were publicised through the school newsletter.

One new initiative included nominating a handful of children in each year group as “Kindness Ambassadors”.  Part of their role is to share ideas in assembly about valuing kindness. Additionally, these children are able to issue rewards in the form of “Caught Being Kind” cards to other children when they observe random acts of kindness around the school.  Examples may include a child including someone else in their game or a child helping someone else with their class work. 

The impact of achieving this award has been wide ranging.  In particular, it has served as a great acknowledgement of how hard our staff work across the school, which in turn has positively impacted on the level of high-quality support for our pupils.   Southwater Junior Academy is looking forward to working with pupils, parents, staff and trustees to continue this essential work on behalf of the whole school community.

 

Further information about the award can be found here.

Our current action plan can be found here.

Our Wellbeing Strategy can be found here.

 

As a school we take bullying and its impact seriously. Pupils and parents should be assured that known incidents of bullying will be responded to in line with our policy which can be found here.

We are increasingly aware of the pressures that the internet can place on young people. We follow clear policies and procedures to keep pupils safe and we monitor children's use of our IT facilities. However, this is not so easy to manage at home, particularly if pupils have internet access in the privacy of their own bedrooms.  Advice about the use of the internet and staying safe online can be found here.