The Health and Well-being Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) provides a holistic structure for understanding health and well-being. It assists with helping learners to navigate life's opportunities and challenges. The fundamentals of this area are physical health and development, mental health, and emotional and social well-being.
At St. Mary's we support learners to understand and appreciate how the different components of health and well-being are interconnected, and to recognise that good health and well-being are important to enable successful learning.
Engagement with this Area will help to foster a whole-school approach that enables health and well-being to permeate all aspects of school life.
At St. Mary's School, health and well-being is at the very heart of everything we do; it is the beating heart of our school community and sits proudly in partnership with our church aided ethos.
We provide learning opportunities to support our children to manage risks, express their ideas and emotions, develop and maintain healthy relationships, and take on different roles and responsibilities.
Developing physical health and well-being has lifelong benefits.
Our pupils learn about factors that affect physical health and well-being. This includes physical activity, a balanced diet, personal care and hygiene, the importance of sleep and how to keep themselves and others safe.
Children in Foundation Learning have the choice of a healthy snack every day and a choice of milk or water to drink. They are encouraged to bring in their own water bottles and have cooled, filtered water in easy access at all times.
The activities and range of experiences our children experience can help them lead healthy and active lifestyles which promote good physical health and well-being.
We are proud of our Healthy School National Award, which has been a framework for maintaining and embedding the physical, mental and social health and well being.
Our Physical Health
Children take part in a wide range of physical activities and are taught to develop and apply a range of skills in familiar, unfamiliar and changing situations. They are given the chance to explore space creatively in response to a variety of stimuli and are provided with opportunities to develop their confidence through participating regularly in physical activity and sport.
We encourage every child to have a positive relationship with physical activity, for life and as part of our multi ability focussed curriculum, we follow the Real PE approach, to help children develop their agility, balance and coordination, healthy competition and cooperative learning. We follow the Dance, Gymnastics and Core Real PE modules and these are taught across all year groups. We teach children to develop their sporting skills across a range of topics, including by taking part in invasion game activities such as netball and hockey. Children also participate in athletics sessions and use the skills required for striking and fielding games, such as rounders and cricket. The Junior children also attend swimming lessons at one of our local swimming pool, here they also learn to develop essential water lifesaving skills.
We have good community links within our small village and make use of the Tennis Courts, just a short walk away. We also have strong links with our Active Wrexham team and attend many of the competitions and festivals that they arrange. We are pleased to have also welcomed Matthew Jones, one of the sport development officers into school. He has worked with all of the classes across school, introducing the children (and staff!) to new field games such as Danish Longball and Kickball. One of the Community Cricket Coaches, Jamie Griffiths has also worked with the children in the Juniors, teaching them the rules and skills to play Kwik Cricket.
Healthy Competition
Children are encouraged to take part in a number of sporting events, in both competitive and fun matches or events. Children play sport against various schools at both cluster and county events - children are given the opportunity to represent the school, a responsible task they take seriously and are extremely proud to do! We also hold in school competitions, including Swimming Galas, House Games and Sports day.
We offer pupils the chance to participate in a range of sporting after school clubs, these places are very often filled extremely quickly! So far this year, Junior pupils have had the chance to join both Netball and Football after school clubs.
How we process and respond to our experiences affects our mental health and emotional well-being.
We encourage our pupils to talk about and communicate how they are feeling. Each year, we celebrate Children's Mental Health Week and take part in a range of activities to promote ways to look after our mental health.
We choose our themes and topics carefully and use a variety of materials to support children's well-being. We use a range of books and stories that instigate conversations, provide support for their worries and an avenue to discuss the way they are feeling too.
Children participate well in our Jigsaw themes and circle time activities; they have opportunities to talk through emotions and are encouraged and nurtured to be able to identify and develop strategies to overcome 'big' emotions.
Our decision-making impacts on the quality of our lives and the lives of others.
Forest School, our woodwork project and a rich creative environment are ways in which our learners to manage risk, express their ideas and emotions. We value children's voice and use stories to evoke emotions and discussions and generate ideas. There are always opportunities to share ideas and express emotions during class conversations, in circle time and jigsaw sessions as well as through creative arts.
PC Hulley, our School Police Liason Officer regularly visits school to deliver whole school assemblies with key messages to support pupil's decision making, informing children about the risks associated across a range of scenarios they will come in contact with, both now and in their future lives.
PC Hulley also delivers workshops to the children in Reception, Years 2, 4 and 6 to teach them about key messages across a range of themes including; People who help us, antisocial behaviour and sinister substances, to name a few.
How we engage with social influences shapes who we are and affects our health and well-being
We are very proud to be a Church in Wales Voluntary Aided School and a part of the St Asaph Diocese family of schools. Church schools are inclusive by nature, welcoming children from families of all faiths and none, while recognising that faith is something that shapes people’s lives. Our rules for living together are developed from positive attitudes and promoting respect through our three values: Ready, Respectful and Safe.
The ways in which we welcome our children with our morning greetings are a small kindness gesture creating an opportunity for a little attention to be paid to each and every child as their day starts. This affords us the opportunity to notice and attend to subtle changes in our children and helps establish and strengthen a culture where respect is modelled, children are helped to be ready and each day starts with everyone feeling noticed, cared for and safe.
Our curriculum views learning as a process, a starting point, things may change, go wrong and we work together to do our best. We display our children's work creatively, celebrating their achievements both at home and at school. Our learning opportunities embrace different cultural experiences - this year we have looked at celebrating Harvest in different cultures and religions. We embrace every chance for children to show us what they are good at, in both indoor and outdoor environments. We organise enrichment trips such for all children in school, such as recent trips to Liverpool, and Bangor On Dee Race Course and to Agrication Farm.
Creativity is vitally important and an essential part of our curriculum. Providing a variety of art, culture and sport enables every child to experience things they may not otherwise have the opportunity to explore. It opens up the world to them and provides children who have talents in those areas to become leaders.
We aim to empower our pupils with accurate information and knowledge, enabling them to tackle racism and challenge racist attitudes. Pupils in the Juniors regularly take part in 'Show Racism the Red Card' workshops.
The United Nations convention on the rights of the child
We recognise the importance and significance of the articles stated in The United Nations convention on the rights of the child and readily discuss the meaning and values with the children in school. Through a range of activities, children are taught how adults and governments must work together to make sure all children can enjoy all their rights.
Cynefin
“Cynefin” is a Welsh term defined by Curriculum for Wales as 'the place where we feel we belong, where the people and landscape around us are familiar, and the sights and sounds are reassuringly recognisable'. At St. Mary's, we encourage our pupils to connect with their Cynefin across a wide range of learning experiences, and in many ways. Although it can be translated to “habitat” in English, “Cynefin” is not just the area in which we live; It is often used to describe the relationship between people and the natural world, and how our connection to our surroundings can shape our sense of identity and well-being.
Healthy relationships are fundamental to our well-being.
We encourage our pupils talk about their feelings and we create an environment where it’s safe to talk openly about feelings and emotions and help develop strategies to overcome some 'big' emotions.
We also help our children to recognise the signs about how others may be feeling too through our Christian Values and within our Jigsaw and circle time sessions as well as incidental discussions and scenarios.
We teach mindfulness and visualisation during our jigsaw lessons, showing children how to calm theirs mind to be ready to learn. We try to recognise what motivates them to perform at their best which works well alongside growth mindset and visible learning.
Through activities like 'Our Favourite Things' oracy task and whole school topics like 'Wonder' and 'The Dot', our pupils are encouraged to discuss their feelings in many ways and the fact that all classes participate in these activities normalise these discussions. Our daily Helpwr Heddiw routines give children the opportunity to check in and talk about how they are feeling with their peers.
We are extremely proud of the kindness and empathy the children in our school show towards others. The children love to spread their kindness and as part of Anti Bullying week, wrote notes for each other and helped to raise money for the Children in Need charity. We also support a number of other charities, including Red Nose Day and in house fundraising events suggested by the pupils.
Forest School
Forest School provides our children with opportunities to be active which is natural to them. It is through their movement that they can develop their ideas, thoughts, make connections to their understanding of the world around them and show how they feel about things. Children’s educational experiences have each child at the centre of the curriculum and we provide our pupils with activities and challenges that will develop their love of learning. Forest School gives children opportunities to engage with the natural environment in a positive and supportive way.
The outdoor environment offers learning opportunities which are different, additional and equal to those which are taught in the classroom. All children need space outdoors to practise large scale movements which the indoor environment cannot begin to accommodate.
By giving children space in which to explore and learn from the world around them, they are able to cultivate their appreciation of the wonder and beauty of the natural environment.
Assessing pupil Well-being
Each year, children in the Juniors complete the PASS survey which helps to support pupils' wellbeing in learning, and offers practical next steps. In addition to this, starting in March 2023, Junior pupils will take part in the School Health Research Network (SHRN) and complete a short biennial survey related to health and wellbeing which will help to generate valuable data to inform whole school approaches to health and wellbeing. Staff then use the results to provide intervention with help and support for children were necessary.
We hope this page has given you a flavour and a snapshot of our brilliant school and demonstrates how we are currently meeting the requirements of the Health and Wellbeing AoLE.
Kay Lawrenson and Nia Williams - Health and Well-being leads.
Credits:
Created with images by veneratio - "Beautiful vibrant aerial drone landscape image of sunrise in Autumn Fall over English countryside" • MarekPhotoDesign.com - "Mistakes are proof that you are trying"