Mental Health and Wellbeing Provision at OLOL

At Our Lady of Lourdes (OLOL), we actively promote the positive mental health & wellbeing of our whole school community. For children to learn, and teachers to teach, to their best ability, they need to happy! This is something that is at the forefront of how we 'Live. Love. Learn.' at our school.

We celebrate and promote wellbeing through a variety of ways. Since introducing Yoga and Mindfulness into our curriculum in 2015, it has become thoroughly embedded across the school.  These sessions have seen the children develop an awareness of their emotions and how to manage them. In addition to this, we hold regular themed assemblies which allow the children and staff to talk about their own emotions.  We also take part in themed days and weeks which keeps mental health high on the agenda at our school. We also believe, that as teachers, we are role models and endeavour to promote our own positive mental health through healthy habits. Recently, we have welcomed our Early Mental Health Practioner, Kelly, who is working with our school community to enhance our Mental Health provision.

Emotional Literacy Support Assistants (ELSA)

As part of the Our Lady of Lourdes family, we want you to know that your children’s emotional needs are as equally important as their academic needs. Mrs. Cookson and Mrs. Walker are fully qualified ELSAs who have specific days dedicated to providing this important support to children across the school.

The Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) programme is an evidence based accredited course, for Teaching Assistants. It is nationally recognised for its approach in supporting children and young people, with a variety of Social and Emotional needs. The programme is initially 10 weeks of training (1 full day a week) followed by annual supervision and compulsory Conference attendance. This is enhanced through continual professional development.

Alongside school Educational Psychologists, ELSA support children in building coping strategies and resilience towards everyday life and long-term challenges, such as bereavement, friendship difficulties, family separation and trauma.

Staff Mental Health Champions

At Our Lady of Lourdes, we have an enthusiastic Mental Health Champions staff team who are dedicated to promoting positive mental health and wellbeing around school. These include members of staff from all areas of school life. Each member of the team has been allocated to support a specific phase group. If you have any worries or would just like to share some ideas about how we can help everyone be happy, please speak to us!