Gold Award for Abbeys Primary

The year long RAW project [Raising attainment with wellbeing] has had a huge impact across the whole school community and has improved relationships and resilience at every level. Not only did Abbeys achieve the Gold award, but their work was credited as best in class, out of 40 schools!

The project started with whole staff training on mental health and wellbeing. We were supported by MK schools mental health team and were lucky enough to spend a day with wellbeing guru, Adrian Bethune, focusing on wellbeing in the classroom.

Since then the school culture has changed, the pupils are more resilient, they are more open and discuss their feelings willingly. There is an important daily schedule of check-ins and a sense of belonging within the school community. We are focused on our core school values with an emphasis on relationships and kindness. Pupils are showing more empathy and understanding towards one another, they support and guide each other- our year 5/6 mental health Ambassadors have been leading whole school assemblies confidently teaching their peers. Most importantly, pupils are in a better place to learn and their progress is better because they are mentally stronger.

As well as changing our practice, we have also developed our curriculum to include focused learning on mental health and more opportunities for outdoor learning including forest school. This new curriculum enables us to explicitly teach pupils and provide them with a toolkit of strategies they can use in later life. Not only have we seen academic improvements, but children are growing holistically.

Alongside this work we have supported parents and carers and held workshops to help pupils struggling with SEMH and EBSA. We have embedded a range of effective interventions to improve pupil wellbeing and it is wonderful to see pupils thriving.

Our next step is to embed all of this important work and develop our role as a pioneer school. Mental health lead Kelly Proctor said 'putting pupil wellbeing at the heart of learning has been enlightening. There is a strong sense of belonging at Abbeys, from pupils, to staff and parents, we are one huge happy team'.