St Vincent's Catholic Primary School

“Caritas Christi Urget Nos –

The love of Christ urges us to care for each other and strive for excellence in everything we do.”

Wellbeing

Wellbeing

MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING AT ST. VINCENT'S

At St Vincent’s, we are committed to supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of our pupils and staff. We know that everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times, anyone may need additional emotional support. We take the view that positive mental health is everybody’s business and that we all have a role to play.  

Mental health and wellbeing is at the forefront of our growing community and St Vincent’s. 

We offer different levels of support:

Universal Support

To meet the needs of all our pupils through our overall ethos, curriculum and our wider curriculum. For instance, developing resilience for all.

Additional support

For those who may have short term needs and those who may have been made vulnerable by life experiences such as bereavement (BICS for example)

Targeted Support

For pupils who need more differentiated support and resources or specific targeted interventions such as wellbeing groups or personal mentors (Work with Miss Scelsi, BICS or HEWS etc)

Individual Support

Lead staff members to contact if you are concerned about your child’s mental health: Miss Scelsi (Senior Mental Health Lead and Mental Health First Aider, Miss Doherty (Mental Health First Aider), Ms Malone (SENDCO) and Ms Tuohy (Head teacher).

What do we currently do for mental health and wellbeing for our pupils and staff?

We have a designated Senior Mental Health Lead in school that is responsible for promoting wellbeing for our staff and pupils (Miss Scelsi).
We have small groups and/or class sessions that develop social skills, resilience skills,and 1:1 check in with pupils.
We have a well-being team made up of the following staff: Miss Scelsi, Mr Gibson, and Mrs Doherty.
In each class we have worry boxes for pupils to share their worries with a safe adult.
We have nominated rights respecting ambassadors in each class to represent their peers and gain feedback.
We hold safeguarding meetings with SLT to identify pupils who need more regular meetings to support their needs.
We have an open door policy, email addresses and seesaw so parents can email concerns or worries.
We have home/school communication books for pupil’s who require more regular updates.
We have transitions/meet the teacher sessions.
We allocate a buddy for all new pupils.
We have mental health and wellbeing trained staff in order to support pupils with their needs.
We have positive behaviour systems in place to promote positive social behaviour.
We have mental health and wellbeing assemblies to promote resilience and self-management.
We have a PSHE curriculum that helps pupils to build important life skills, such as learning to learn, habits of mind and the growth mindset.
We have a PSHE curriculum that helps pupils to build important life skills, such as learning to learn, habits of mind and the growth mindset.
Our ethos is to promote supporting the development of skills and character traits such as perseverance, compassion and teamwork.
We have a Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy for our school which is regularly updated.
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Here are some of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Services that we can access for you and your children. Please click on the logos to find out more.

To learn more about what we are doing at school, please visit our mental health and wellbeing blog page:

Mental Health and Wellbeing Blog

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Curriculum Intent

At St Vincent’s it is our INTENT is to enable ALL children to thrive through the opportunities we provide them with, in order to:

  • Live their lives by the Gospel and Vincentian values instilled in them at school.
  • Understand that everyone has the right and responsibility to live in our world constructively and ensure that we leave it in a better state than when we entered it by living and working through the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in line with the UNCRC (United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child)
  • Experience creativity across the curriculum through specialist art and dance lessons and opportunities to take part in art, music, dance and creative writing competitions.
  • Know the joy of outdoor learning, the rich biodiversity within our school grounds and locality and develop a responsibility for the environment we share as stewards.
  • Understand their place in the world, globally and locally, knowing the history of our school, Mill Hill and the Daughters of Charity and knowing where our diverse community members have their roots across the world.
  • Be ready and well-prepared for their next steps in life, having high aspirations for themselves and for others because they have experienced success and a belief in learning from mistakes.
  • Have a life-long curiosity, stimulated by the driving questions of Project Based Learning approach to the curriculum fostering inquiry and independent learning skills, which give confidence to ask big questions about the world.
  • Be literate and numerate having experienced a rich variety of texts to stimulate and excite the mind while developing skills in investigating and problem solving to enable them to excel in their future passions.
  • Be confident and happy young people that have a broad understanding and tolerance of the world and others around them with excellent communication skills honed by their experience of Restorative Justice and respect of the dignity and wishes of the individual.

Curriculum Context

St Vincent’s is a 1.5 form entry school with 285 children ranging from 4 -11. Children come predominantly from the parishes of Sacred Heart in Mill Hill and St Anthony’s in Edgware.

Children come from a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds, speak 17 different languages and hail from 26 different ethnic groups. The curriculum we present, and promote, to the children is an endeavour to reflect these differences by providing opportunities to explore the different countries, languages and customs our children are part of through the projects they investigate. We have looked closely at the context of our school, the backgrounds of the children and how life is for a child growing up in North London today. We have used the underlying principles of our Catholic Faith and the example of our namesake St Vincent to create a set of values which lie at the heart of our curriculum.

We are aware of the changing nature of society and the pressures faced by young children as they enter the next stage of their education. The rise in Mental Health related issues has been widely documented across the media. Therefore, issues such as internet safety and the enormous impact across society of social media are at the forefront of our minds when planning our curriculum. With the current worldwide concerns relating to Covid 19, racial justice, equality and diversity, as well as gender and economic background, we feel it is our duty to prepare the children through a concerted focus on building independence, resilience and communication skills linked to our Vincentian Values.