Wellbeing and Mental Health

​At St Gabriel’s, our pupils’ happiness and wellbeing lies at the heart of everything that we do.

St Gabriel’s is dedicated to:

• establishing a whole-school approach to mental health and well-being where positive mental health and wellbeing are fundamental to the values, ethos and culture of the school
• creating a school environment supporting pupil and staff mental health and wellbeing
• providing mental health support for pupils at the whole-school, targeted and individual levels with outside support where appropriate

Developing and maintaining positive mental health and wellbeing is integrated in all that we do at St Gabriel’s.  There are a variety of supports in place to specifically target mental health and wellbeing.

Wellbeing and Mental Health Lessons

Health and Wellbeing lessons are taught regularly in KS1 and KS2 as part of our PSHE curriculum.

World Mental Health Day

We devote extra time to teaching and learning about Mental Health and wear yellow to raise awareness of young people’s mental health on World Mental Health Day. #HelloYellow

Mental Health Support Teams

Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) are a new service designed to help meet the mental health needs of children and young people in education settings. They are made up of Children and Young People’s Mental Health Practitioners and Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs). 

The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families:

The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families’ Schools Outreach Team (SOT) is for children and young people who are struggling with a range of complex difficulties in the classroom, and for their families. The service is designed to make mental health expertise accessible at the earliest possible opportunity by destigmatising crucial discussions and working with the two most influencing areas of a child’s life: the family and the school. The sessions are delivered at school by the Centre’s experienced Schools Outreach Therapists, who have expertise in delivering specialist and innovative therapeutic interventions.

Educational Psychologist:

Ellie Mortimer is the Educational Psychologist who works with our school regularly to help us think about our learners’ progress, happiness and well-being.

Dream Arts

DreamArts uses the arts to enable young people to realise their potential.

We work with young people in London aged 7-25 to empower and inspire them to form stronger connections with each other, their families and build a greater sense of community. Our projects uncover and nurture their talents, whether in performance, multi media, or all-important life skills such as leadership and communication, with many going on to a career in the arts thanks to our links with London’s creative industries.

Dream Arts Express:

Young people facing particular challenges in their lives can get 1:1 arts therapy through Express Plus, or express themselves through developing their own creative work as part of Express Collective, whilst Family Express strengthens families. 

At present, there are several aspects to our project. All facilities aim to give priority to those who are most in need. St. Vincent’s Family Project offers the following services:

• Family Space, which is a service for young families and aims to support the whole family
• Therapies and courses including creative art therapies, 1 to 1 support opportunities, support groups, parenting courses and healthy living courses​ 

Creative Arts Therapy

Creative Arts Therapy improves the mental health of children and uses art, drama, music, dance and movement to obtain positive therapeutic outcomes.  St Vincent’s currently offer creative arts therapy to children between the ages of 4 and 13 years and work closely with school and families to organise 1-1 sessions wither at school or at their centre.

Wellbeing and Sensory Room

There is a dedicated Sensory and Wellbeing Room within the school which provides a calm and quiet space for reflection and targeted intervention to support sensory needs, mental health and wellbeing.

Physical Wellbeing

At St Gabriel’s we believe good physical health is essential to our mental wellbeing so our pupils can reach their full potential.

Our pupils learn about the benefits and importance of daily exercise through participation of the daily mile, 2 hours of directed curriculum time dedicated to develop fundamental skills and having active break times by providing a range of fun and stimulating playground equipment.

We use cross curricular links with science to ensure all pupils explore why good nutrition and sufficient sleep are integral to our overall physical and mental health. Weekly PSHE lessons support their physical well-being by giving pupils the language and knowledge to understand the normal range of emotions that everyone experiences. These lessons also help our children to articulate how they are feeling, develop the language to talk about their bodies, health and emotions and judge whether what they are feeling and how they are behaving is appropriate and proportionate for the situations that they experience.

At St Gabriel’s we encourage our pupils to explore different hobbies, interests and participate in a range of clubs in their own communities. We support our pupils to develop their social skills by demonstrating how to work with others in organised and structured activities and groups and explore how these activities are beneficial for health and wellbeing.