Intent

At Powers Hall Academy, we recognise that we have an important role to play in enabling our pupils to be resilient and to support good mental health and wellbeing for all.  It is being noticed around the school environment how important the power of conversation is and how pupils are starting to open up and share ideas around wellbeing and mental health – it’s the same as physical health and that good conversations can really make such a difference. Evidence suggests that a small improvement in wellbeing can help to decrease some mental health problems and also help people to flourish.

By referring to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, we are able to better understand what our students require from us. By meeting students’ basic and psychological needs, we are creating a welcoming, safe and effective learning environment. Something as simple as providing breakfast before class is a way to ensure that our pupils are set up for the day and ready to concentrate.

As parent and carers, your engagement is important to the success of this initiative because working together has been shown to have a promising impact on the wellbeing, attendance, behaviour, sense of school belonging, intellectual development and attainment of children across a range of social and economic backgrounds. To help you understand and value our approach to positive mental health and wellbeing, we intend to share the same strategies we are cultivating as a school for use at home with your children. This will make it easier for you  to become involved in contributing to our schools approach which will evolve into a shared understanding of wellbeing and how to develop it both at home and school through a common language.

Implementation

Powers Hall Academy follows the Essex TPP (Trauma Perceptive Practice) approach to understanding behaviour and supporting well-being. This approach uses the values of Compassion, Kindness, Hope, Connection and Belonging to support children and is embedded in our school systems and practice.

One way we are promoting good mental wellbeing for all pupils is by introducing a whole school ‘Meet and Greet’ initiative. This is a soft start to the school day for all.

To support learners in developing their character-including their resilience, confidence and independence – and to help them know how to keep physically and mentally healthy, we support the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ as suggested by evidence-based research. Across a week, we actively encourage all pupils to engage in a range of five simple and proven actions/activities that will help all members of our school community to find balance, build resilience and boost mental health and wellbeing.

The 5 ways are:

• Keep Learning - develop new skills.
• Connect - make contact with people, talk and have fun.
• Take Notice - look around you, explore mindfulness.
• Give - Help others, even in small ways.
• Be active - move around to aid mood and general health.

Children share what they have done in class and we are always looking for new ideas that will help us connect, keep learning, be active, give and take notice. This links to our whole school development plan which focuses on ensuring that our pupils are provided with ways which will help them with their emotional and mental needs now and in the future.

Self-regulation is something everyone continually works on whether or not we are aware of it or not. We all encounter trying circumstances that test our limits from time to time. If we are able to recognise when we are becoming less regulated, we are able to do something about it to manage our feelings and get ourselves to a healthy place.

This comes naturally for some, but for others it is a skill that needs to be taught and practiced. This is the goal of The Zones of Regulation (or Zones for short).

What are the Zones?

The zones is a systematic, cognitive behavioural approach used to teach self-regulation by categorising all the different ways we feel, and states of alertness we experience, into four concrete coloured zones.

At Powers Hall Academy, we use the zones framework to provides strategies to teach our children to become more aware of and independent in controlling their emotions and impulses, manage their sensory needs, and improve their ability to problem solve conflict situations.

By addressing underlying deficits, the framework is designed to help our pupils toward independent regulation.

The Four Zones

The Blue zone is used to describe low states of alertness and down feelings such as when one feels sad, tired, sick or bored.

The Green Zone is used to describe a calm state of alertness. A person may be described as happy, focused, content, or ready to learn when in the green zone. This is the zone where optimal learning occurs.

The Yellow Zone is also used to describe a heightened state of alertness and elevated emotions, however one has more control when they are in the yellow zone. A person may be experiencing stress, frustration, anxiety, excitement, silliness, the wiggles or nervousness when in the yellow zone.

The Red Zone is used to describe extremely heightened states of alertness and intense emotions. A person may be elated or experiencing anger, rage, devastation, or terror when in the Red Zone.

The Zones can be compared to traffic signs.

When given a green light or in the Green Zone, one is “good to go”. A yellow sign means be aware or take caution, which applies to the Yellow Zone. A red light or stop sign means stop, and when one is the Red Zone this often is the case. The Blue Zone can be compared to the rest area signs where one goes to rest or re-energise.

All of the zones are natural to experience, but the framework focuses on teaching students how to recognise and manage their Zone based on the environment and its demands and the people around them. For example, when playing on the playground or in an active/competitive game, students are often experiencing a heightened internal state such as silliness or excitement and are in the Yellow Zone, but it may not need to be managed.

However, if the environment is changed to the library where there are different expectations than the playground, students may still be in the Yellow Zone but have to manage it differently so their behaviour meets the expectations of the library setting.

Impact

By finding ways for teachers to reconnect and reach out to their pupils before expecting them to engage in learning, pupils will feel comfortable and safe in their classrooms. Pupils’ basic and emotional needs will be met; therefore, improving pupils’ behaviour and progress in learning. This supports the notion that teachers who care about their pupils, who show respect, resilience and understanding, tend to get better results in terms of relationships and progress data (Miller, 2008).

By the end of year 6 our pupils will be able to:

• communicate when feeling dysregulated
• use strategies for their own self-regulation
• actively listen to the speaker - can reflect on what has been said to them before they respond. They are fully engaged in listening. Uses verbal and nonverbal feedback (smiling etc).
• take steps to resolve conflicts with others by negotiating, asking questions and finding a compromise; sometimes by themselves, sometimes with support.
• describe their competencies, what they can do well and are getting better at; describing themselves in positive but realistic terms