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Wellbeing

Student Support & Wellbeing

Our students’ wellbeing and mental health is a key priority for us at Oakwood School. We believe having the right support in place will enable all our students to develop academically as well as face the challenges of navigating the way through their adolescent lives. We are very fortunate that from the primary transition Year 6 to 7 through to Year 11, our students are supported by a team of pastoral staff.

All students will take part in PSHCE lessons and assemblies where a varied topic range is discussed and presented to the student community as a whole, which enables access to external services that students can approach independently such as Tootoot and Kooth.com. Other students may benefit from a more individualised approach and we can arrange input from our school counsellor, school nursing teams, student Wellbeing Ambassadors, Youth Mental Health First Aiders and 1:1 sessions with pastoral staff, we are also able to signpost to a range of external providers.

All students are able to access support for their emotional wellbeing and mental health from the Student Services department, which is open from 8.30am – 4.15pm every day throughout break and lunch. Every student is unique and has their own individual needs therefore, we will endeavour to find the best way we can to support them with whatever challenge they are facing. This may be from staff within our Student Services and Pastoral departments or from the SEND team.

At Oakwood School, we believe that Staff Wellbeing is paramount and we have been working hard to put measures in place to ensure staff feel valued and supported. We recognise our staff work tirelessly to support all our students and we do try and find innovative ways of saying thank you to them throughout the year. Student and staff wellbeing at Oakwood School will continue to be a key priority in our development plan and we are proud of how much has been achieved so far. We will continue to expand and improve the opportunities on offer to our whole school community and families.

POST LOCKDOWN FEELINGS

We understand that all our students and families will be facing life beyond lockdown and view the easing of restrictions with some trepidation and a level of anxiety. For many of our students, they will have a heightened sense of anxiety with some fearfulness; both reactions are completely valid and everyone is individual with their own thoughts and feelings.

Throughout the lockdown periods and times of the school move to remote learning for the majority, we acknowledge that many of our families have suffered the loss of a family member or loved one or supported someone through illness whether this be from Covid-19 or other health related matter including mental ill health. Some families may have gone through additional/different traumas impacting their family life, including loss of income and financial hardship, being separated from much loved family members for a significant amount of time and the loss of ‘normal life and routines’ has all played a part over the last few months.

Our students and families are very important to us and we want to ensure that you feel well supported and have access to information that can promote wellbeing and positive mental health as we continue our way through the rest of the year.

In this section of our website, you will find information about the support we offer at Oakwood and links to various organisations that you may find useful.