Mrs Mason is the Pastoral Lead at North Leigh Primary school. You can contact her about accessing pastoral support via the school office or email her directly assistanthead@north-leigh.oxon.sch.uk.

The aims of pastoral support at North Leigh CE Primary School:

• To provide support that meets the differing needs of all children to ensure they are equipped with coping skills for when life gets tricky
• To support children to address physical, social, emotional and mental health and well-being needs
• To maintain an atmosphere in which children feel secure; are encouraged in their learning, growth and social development and know that they are valued
• To work with a range of stakeholders including parents, support staff, outside agencies and other schools to ensure the continuity and progress of individual pupils
• To support children to successfully follow our school rules.

Supporting Children's Mental Health and Well-Being

• NHS Every Mind Matters - looking after mental health
• BBC bitesize- wellbeing tips for parents to help support a healthy, happy childhood - advice on food, sleep, mindfulness as well as ways to look after you and your child's mental health
• NHS Anxiety in Children
• NHS Talking to your child about feelings
• NHS Mental Health for children and teenagers
• NHS Depression in children and young people
• Young Minds: A - Z mental health guide for parents
• Young Minds: Getting Support from Mental Health Services
• Young Minds: How to talk to your child about mental health
• NHS Children and bereavement

Supporting Parents’ Mental Health and Well-Being

Oxfordshire Domestic Abuse Services
As a school, we are mindful of the prevalence of Domestic Abuse and the impact of this on parents and their children. We are always here to listen and support in any way that we can. However, we are also aware that victims and witnesses can often be too fearful to report. Here are two local support services you may find helpful.

• Domestic Abuse Support Services A2Dominion
• DA - Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership

Parent helplines:
Young Minds offer a parents' free helpline for advice about any aspect of children and young people's mental health:
0808 8025544 Mon - Fri 9.30am - 4.00pm
or visit the website Young Minds for further support and information

NSPCC Helpline 7 days a week for concerns about a child's safety or well-being (including mental health):
email help@nspcc.org.uk, or call 0808 800 5000 or visit the website NSPCC Helpline for more information

If urgent help is required for mental health: call 111

Mental Health Support Team (MHST) 
We have an Educational Mental Health Practitioner who supports us in school half a day each week. She can work with children from Year 6 on a one to one basis or their parents (if they are younger than this). Support can be for anything that affects mental health and well-being: anxiety, low mood, low self-esteem, poor resilience, poor coping strategies etc. If you think this is something you may be interested in, please speak to Mrs Mason or email her at assistant-head@north-leigh.oxon.sch.uk

We are an ELSA school!

Emotional Literacy Support (ELSA)
What is ELSA?
There will always be children and young people in schools facing life challenges that detract from their ability to engage with learning. Some will require greater support to increase their emotional literacy than others. ELSA is an initiative developed and supported by Educational Psychologists. It recognises that children learn better and are happier in school if their emotional needs are also addressed.

In ELSA we aim to provide support for a wide range of emotional needs:

Recognising emotions
Anxiety
Self-esteem
Social skills
Friendship skills
Anger management
Loss and bereavement

It should be considered that change cannot necessarily be achieved rapidly and is dependent upon the context and complexity of the presenting issues. For children with complex or long-term needs it is unrealistic to expect ELSA intervention to resolve all their difficulties, however support will be designed to target specific aspects of a child's need. Training and development of ELSA is an ongoing process and wisdom is required to recognise when issues may need a different support approach. Mrs Mason (our ELSA trained member of staff) has regular meetings with an Educational Psychologist who is able to offer advice on suitability or nature of ELSA involvement in complex cases.

So what do the children think?

On completion of their ELSA intervention, we ask the children to reflect on their experiences and to kindly leave us some feedback. Here are some of the words used to describe ELSA sessions.

5 Ways to Wellbeing

At North Leigh, we encourage children to adopt the 5 ways to wellbeing to help maintain good mental wellbeing. You can find more information here.

Back to School

BBC Bitesize : Five ways to help your child settle back into the school routine

Service Families

The lives of Service Children may be more demanding than those of their civilian peers. Deployment of a parent, house and school moves that can come with a military career can be de-stabilising for all of the family. We recognise that regular moves can make it difficult to settle in school, to make new friends, and to have access to a consistent curriculum. We provide tailored pastoral support to any Service Children who seek it. Additionally, Mrs Mason runs a once a fortnight drop-in lunchtime club for our children who have / had had a parent working in the Armed Forces.

Useful links:

• Little Troopers at Home
• RAF Families Federation
• RAF Brize Norton Facilities

Young Carers

We understand that some children may have a caring role within their home. This will bring them extra responsibilities and put pressure on them, which in turn could affect their learning. They may need to have extra support to help them get the most out of their school day so that they can more happily access their learning and with more confidence.

We understand that a child could be caring for a parent, grandparent or sibling who has a disability, mental or physical illness or is affected by substance misuse. We aim to support our Young Carers by providing them with group sessions that are fun, support them emotionally and enable them to share information and experiences with other Young Carers in school.

Useful links:

• Be Free YC A charity for Young Carers in Oxfordshire

Drawing and Talking Therapy Intervention

Two of our Teaching Assistants have recently received training to deliver Drawing and Talking: a one on one intervention that takes place weekly for 30 minutes and lasts for 12 weeks. Drawing and Talking is a safe and gentle therapeutic intervention for children and young people that need an alternative to talk-based therapy, providing them with a creative way to express their thoughts and feelings, process emotions and improve emotional resilience.

For more information please see the Drawing and Talking Factsheet for parents and carers. Parental consent is required for children to receive the Drawing and Talking intervention. Should you wish your child to access support from this intervention in the future, please email Mrs Mason assistanthead@north-leigh.oxon.sch.uk.