At Skelton School it is our intent to develop confident, capable learners in a caring community. As part of this, across school, we aim to foster a positive and inclusive learning environment where students feel valued, respected, and supported, promoting their mental wellbeing and resilience, providing the skills and knowledge needed to navigate through challenging times, and to promote positive relationships and mental health awareness.

Regular discussions around mental health and wellbeing take place in age appropriate ways through:

• Whole school assemblies
• Class assemblies or activities
• PSHE lessons
• Story times
• Themed weeks or days
• Social Group

What is an ELSA?

An ELSA in a school is an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant. There is a recognised ELSA training course aimed specifically at Teaching Assistants in schools. Examples of things covered on the course are social skills, emotions, bereavement, social stories and therapeutic stories, anger management, self-esteem, counselling skills such as solution focus and friendship.

Miss Blackburn has recently completed the ELSA training and will be putting these skills into practise in school.

Children's Mental Health Week 2023 - Let's Connect

Last week we celebrated Children's Mental Health Week and the 2023 theme 'Let's Connect'. We started out the week reading the book, The Invisible String, and thinking about all of our invisible connections to the people we love. Year 5/6 also surprised us all at break time with a flash mob dance to 'We're all in this together' from High School Musical, which got us all connected and dancing together on the playground, even some of the staff! We were also given the challenge of connecting with someone new this week and seeing the impact it had on our own and the other person's wellbeing. We've put all of our connections together to make a Skelton School jigsaw and we were amazed at all the different new connections we'd made!

Support links for mental health and wellbeing:

Parents are also welcome to borrow any of the picture books from the above document to support conversations about mental health and wellbeing at home.