CVS awarded the ‘Wellbeing Award for Schools’
Castle View School, part of Zenith Multi Academy Trust, is elated to announce their most recent accreditation; obtaining the WELLBEING AWARD FOR SCHOOLS from Optimus Education.
This highlights Castle View as leaders of Wellbeing and Mental Health nationally. They are one of the very few to obtain this award across Essex.
Staff at the school have been working relentlessly to improve and continue to deliver pastoral care for the emotional and social needs of their students as well as the physical and academic needs.
The school has earned the award by implementing strategies of support for mental health such as counselling, kids life coaching, yoga sessions, group workshops on confidence and resilience, mindfulness, meditation, student leadership wellbeing teams, staff training, support from outside agencies… all detailed in an excerpt from the report below.
Student Support Officers and Safeguarding Teams were recognised alongside our SEND departments, pastoral programmes and wellbeing coordinators as being “exceptional.”
The report concluded that the school “far exceeded the expectations of the award.”
Mrs Clarke, who led the award, said: ”I’m incredibly happy to announce this accreditation, especially as the chief consultant mentioned how he felt our school led Wellbeing provision “from the heart”.
Mr Durkin, headteacher said “I am incredibly proud of the students and staff who have worked tirelessly over the past 3 years to be able to attain this award. There are only a few schools that have been given this award and the assessor said he could “feel” the focus on Wellbeing in our school. School prepares young people to have fantastic lives as well as lots of qualifications. Our ethos is about developing the whole child and investing in our whole school community’s wellbeing is the right thing to do.”
The major impacts made over the past few years of work and strategy, as highlighted by the assessor, are:
– All stakeholders recognised that the provision for and focus on wellbeing had developed significantly over recent years and was now a strength and selling point of the school to staff, parents and students.
– Through the award process the school have been able to audit their provision which has enabled them to recognise their significant strengths and the areas where they wanted to further focus on. Processes and practices have become more explicit and consistent across the school.
-The school have increased the support capacity for mental health and wellbeing by training a significant number of staff as Mental Health First Aiders. There are many posters around the school identifying who the staff wellbeing champions are.
The school have developed student leadership roles significantly including having wellbeing student leaders and externally trained anti bullying ambassadors.
– Opportunities to promote positive mental health and wellbeing have been integrated into the programme run by form tutors. This programme is planned and coordinated across each year group and highly visible as a learning pathway around the school.
– The school has built effective partnerships which have enabled them to access additional capacity and support for students and staff through the trust, including Zenith Minds and shared supervision, and through acting as a training base for counsellors from the local FE college.
There are a wide range of small-scale projects in place developed for staff by staff which positively impact on wellbeing and build a sense of team e.g. secret teacher, yoga club.
Mental Health and Wellbeing has become a part of the school culture and is celebrated. Its profile is highly visible around the school and is the focus of a number of whole school events.
The school are currently developing the staffroom as a wellbeing space for staff.
