Social, Emotional and Mental Health

At St Joseph’s Catholic Infant School, we support children with their social, emotional and mental health needs.   Some children with social, emotional and mental health needs may: 

• Appear withdrawn and isolated  
• Have difficulty making and maintaining relationships  
• Present with some behaviours that challenge 
• Display physical signs that show distress 

What will every child access as part of their day-to-day learning? 

Within all classrooms, staff ensure that there is high quality, inclusive teaching for the children within the classroom.

Below are some of the things that teachers consider when planning learning:  

• Quality first teaching   
• Zones of regulation 
• Multisensory teaching approaches 
• Purposeful seating arrangement 
• Modelling language 
• Opportunities to support and facilitate early play skills  
• Physical and visual prompts to support language 
• Visual timetables to help children understand the structure of the day  

If my child is struggling, what additional support might they be able to access in school?  

Some children may need ongoing support with their social, emotional and mental health development. This might be due to a diagnosis such as autism, a specific learning need, a bereavement or changes to family circumstances. We use a range of teaching strategies and make adjustments to the learning environment / lessons to ensure children’s needs are catered for.  

For those that require additional support within the school we run a range of interventions and use additional resources such as:   

• Using the sensory room  
• Time in the Nurture area
• Nurture Club- Shooting Stars
• Buddy Bench  

 If my child has more complex needs, how might the school make provision for them?  

If a child has social, emotional or mental health needs, the school will be in regular communication with the child’s parent / carer to ensure both home and school are working in partnership to support the child.  

Sometimes the school or parent / carer might feel a child would benefit from the support of an external agency and with parental / carer consent, a referral might be made for the child to be assessed by someone such as a Play Therapist or the Educational Psychologist. If a child does require additional external agency support, where possible, members of staff will attend the sessions with the therapist to ensure the activities can be continued throughout the week. 

Please click here for our Social, Emotional and Mental Health Provision Map.

St Joseph's Pupil Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy can be viewed on the Our School tab, Policies page.

Useful Websites:  

Zones of Regulation is an approach to helping children to identify the way their bodies feel when experiencing different emotions in order to help them regulate the way they respond.

Please click here for the NHS Borders Zones of Regulation Information Sheet

 Tiny Happy people offers a range of information on how to support your child’s social, emotional and mental health.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people

This NHS site explores strategies on how to support a child with anxiety:

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/children-and-young-adults/advice-for-parents/anxiety-in-children/