What is the Lancashire Healthy Schools Programme?

The Lancashire Healthy Schools Programme has been developed under the National Healthy School Standard and is a partnership project developed by Lancashire LEA, South Lancashire Health Authority, North West Lancashire Health Authority and East Lancashire Health Authority.

 

The Lancashire Healthy Schools programme aims to:

• Raise pupil achievement
• Enhance the health and well-being of pupils, staff and the wider community
• Support the delivery of the PHSE and Citizenship curriculum
• Show OFSTED that our school adopts a systematic and constructive approach towards addressing some of the more difficult issues
• Provide a strategic framework to plan and deliver the most effective course of action to address local and government education and health priorities
• Provide access to training and resources for teacher’s professional development.
• Help embed the school within the wider community.
• Contribute towards staff retention and raising morale.
• Promote pupil involvement and participation, thereby improving social relationships between pupils and between students and staff.
• Demonstrate to employees, students and parents that the school takes young people’s health and well-being seriously.

 

The Lancashire Healthy Schools Programme focuses on twelve Quality Standards. As a school we identify areas for development, write an action plan, complete actions and monitor the impact of this. Below are the 12 standards that we can choose from.

1. Healthy eating
2. Physical activity
3. Drugs, alcohol and tobacco education
4. Sex & relationships education
5. Emotional health & well-being
6. Safety education
7. PSHEE & Citizenship
8. Ethos
9. Partnerships with families & local communities
10. Leadership, management & monitoring change
11. Curriculum planning & implementation
12. Learning & teaching

We are currently working on achieving:

• Sex & relationships education
• PSHEE and citizenship
• Curriculum planning and implementation

Lancashire Healthy Schools Policy

Impact of our changes towards the Ethos standard:

Behaviour:

In June 2018, our behaviour policy was reviewed by a staff working group and major changes were made. A high focus was put on strengthening relationships, using a restorative approach and fostering a culture of “you can always make it right”. Training was provided for all staff on restorative practice in Autumn 2018.

At Ryelands, we have lots of strategies to help children with their behaviour:

· Preventative- School rules, class rules, high expectations, recognition and praise, non-shaming approach to behaviour, safe places in the classroom, curriculum that teaches emotional regulation

· Reactive- Restorative approach, relationship focus, logical consequences

· Additional Support- Internal Team Around the Child Meetings (all adults meet to discuss what works well for a child and how to help them), Pupil Passports, Thrive Assessments and Action Plans, You Own Your Behaviour Charts (child friendly targets that are monitored by a key member of staff who can offer praise and reflection)

In the Autumn and Spring terms of 2018/2019, there wasan initial rise in the number of children who had behaviour incidents logged. This number then dropped by more than half in the Summer term and has remained low. In Spring 2019, another local school visited to look at the behaviour policy and spoke to some of the children. One child reported that “if someone makes a wrong choice, teachers talk to them and help them so they don’t do it again.”

The number of children who had behaviour logs listed dropped by more than half between Spring 2019 and Summer 2019. This could show that children and staff were developing relationships and children were able to resolve conflicts and issues, either themselves or with the support of an adult before things escalated to a behaviour incident.

In Autumn 2020, behaviour incidents were at an all-time low, which is surprising given the amount of time children had away from school, and given that they are forming relationships with new staff. This however shows that staff are responding to adult input when they get dysregulated.

Quotes from children: (December 2020)

“We can always put it right.”

“The teachers listen to everyone’s points of view and we talk about things and make everything better.”

Lancashire Healthy Schools Policy

Impact of our changes towards the Ethos standard:

Thrive:

Thrive is a neuro-sequential, attachment theory based model of social and emotional development. It consists of 6 developmental strands:

1. Being- the first strand that develops in the womb – 6 months old.

2. Doing – develops between 6 – 18 months old.

3. Thinking – develops between 18 months – 3 years old.

4. Power and Identity- develops between 3 years – 7 years old.

5. Skills and Structure- develops between 7 years – 11 years old.

6. Interdependence- develops between 11 years and 18 years old.

Often, children who have experienced trauma or attachment difficulties tend to work at the lower strands of development. In the Being strand, children need to learn to feel safe, special and trust that their needs will be met. All classes are assessed at the strand expected for their age, then the Learning Mentors plan appropriate interventions for any children who are working below. Any children who are working at Being need to be targeted for 1:1 sessions, but children at Doing, Thinking and Power and Identity may benefit from small groups.

This is the first year that Thrive has been fully embedded across school, due to disruption caused by Covid 19.

Already in the Autumn term of 2020, we have seen an impact on specific children:

One child scored 54% at the lowest strand of development, Being. He was finding the transition into school extremely difficult, and his self-esteem and mood were very low. He was finding it difficult to focus in class and was not engaging in his learning. The year before, some behavioural concerns were noted. An action plan was created in September and the Learning Mentor spent several 1:1 and group sessions with him focussed on his targets of describing ways in which he is special and feeling okay about being different. When he was reprofiled in December, he scored 99% overall. His overall results are shown on the graph below. He is now able to move on to the next strand of development, Doing.

Another child was struggling to come into school. He was not accessing any learning, and was hurting other children or becoming upset. He struggled with communication and even with constant support, he was unable to settle. This child was given daily, intensive Thrive sessions with the Learning Mentor and Teaching Assistant, and was given access to a completely differentiated curriculum in the afternoons. After just 2 months, he went from scoring 19% at Being, the lowest strand of development, to scoring 72%. He is no longer hurting other children and is able to come into school and be much more settled.

As well as individual action plans, all children benefit from their whole class action plan that the class teacher uses to support their right time development.

Lancashire Healthy Schools Policy

Impact of our changes towards the PSHEE and citizenship standard:

Safeguarding Following New PSHE Curriculum

Safeguarding is at the heart of everything at Ryelands Primary School. Staff are given a full safeguarding induction and regular training and updates. The Pupil Support Team comprises of 1 full-time, non-teaching DSL, 1 part-time, non-teaching Backup DSL and 3 Learning Mentors. Phase Leaders are also highly informed about safeguarding concerns, which means that there is always someone available to respond to a safeguarding concern should one arise. The new PSHE curriculum has meant that topics such as arguments at home, being safe online, bullying, private places, mental health, racism and much more are part of everyday conversation, as well as being taught in discrete sessions.

Although the Vulnerable Pupils list has always been large, this is undoubtably growing due to children having opportunity to talk and being educated about how to get help should things give them “Yucky feelings”. The fact that the children at Ryelands Primary and Nursery School have so much trust in adults is absolutely vital to the safeguarding ethos of the school. The improved PSHE curriculum has given children lots of opportunities to talk to adults about things on their mind, and given the children an understanding of what is and isn’t acceptable. Not only that, but it has given them the language for how to talk about what is wrong and the confidence that they will be listened to. Many families are now receiving support after opening up about life at home to staff following implementation of the new PSHE curriculum.

In terms of the impact that this is having, the number of families open to Early Help Support has more than tripled since 2017, and continues to grow. The number of families on Child Protection Plans and Child in Need Plans has also increased since 2017, but we are now starting to see many families stepped down to Early Help as Safeguarding Concerns are addressed and families get the support they need.

Quote from child November 2020:    ‘ I know who to talk to in school if I need to.’

OUR TARGET:

Increase number of pupils on level 2 support by 20%.

8 pupils in Autumn 2017, 29 pupils in Autumn 2020= Target exceeded.

Lancashire Healthy Schools Policy

Impact of our changes towards the Curriculum Planning and Implementation standard:

Kidsafe

Kidsafe is a programme that teaches children about staying safe at an age appropriate level. It covers topics such as bullying, arguments at home, private places and being safe online. All children complete a feedback sheet after completion of the course. 100% of all children who answered the question said that they thought Kidsafe was important and should be taught to all children, with reasons given such as that it keeps you safe, it helps you feel better, it’s fun and it will help people.

98% of children said that they would not keep yucky secrets- one child answered that they would and this was addressed with the child 1:1.

80% of the children referred to telling a trusted adult if something gave them yucky feelings. Many children gave other solutions such as walking away, shouting “stop”, and saying “you are the boss of your body”. Several children did not answer the questions fully.

This was then followed up in the recap session the following week, where it was reiterated that if anything gave you yucky feelings, you should tell a trusted adult.

The children overall seemed to enjoy the sessions, reporting that their favourite parts were meeting KS, the puppet, and the trust game.

Any children who raised concerns in Kidsafe were followed up by the learning mentor team.

 

The Zones of Regulation

The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum designed to help children understand their feelings and emotions, and give them tools to manage them. It uses visual tools to help children tune into how they are feeling and signal this to the adults around them. This has been fully embedded in several classrooms now, with all others following suit in 2020 / 2021. 3S have consistently used the Zones of Regulation, and the children are consistent with their understanding and use of language. This has improved emotional literacy for this class, and given them a tool to understand their own emotions.

In pupil interviews, all children said that they felt the Zones had been useful for them, as it helps them understand themselves and it helps teachers to understand why they might be feeling a certain way.

Here are the suggestions that the pupil subject leaders made to the teacher subject leaders. Click here  The highlighted ones are the ones that have been implemented already. We will keep updating this as more of the children’s ideas are added into our curriculum.

Quotes from children following the changes due to their ideas:

‘The library is so cool, it is the best place in school to go, I love the new library.’

‘ I love reading with the younger children.’

‘It is great when real life people come into school to talk to us.’ ‘I love the fire men coming and bringing the fire engine.’

‘It is so much easier and better with the new chromebooks.’

The Year 6 children wanted to show photographs of the library- which they took themselves.

The subject leaders for PSHE took some photographs of the PSHE displays which they liked the best in school. Also they took a photo of the school council display board which they said had all the news on from school council.

‘This is a group agreement which each class have in their PSHE books.’

Some PSHE work which PSHE subject leader chose to share on the website.