Gladstone Primary Academy take the wellbeing of our staff, children and families extremely seriously and are committed to supporting our whole school community to develop and maintain good mental health. Our nurturing approach underpins everything we do in school and ensures that wellbeing is at the heart of our provision.

Wellbeing Week was another valuable opportunity to strengthen this commitment. Throughout the week, we focused on informing and supporting both children and parents around the 5 Ways to Wellbeing, helping everyone to understand practical steps they can take to support positive mental health.

We were delighted to welcome Leigh, our Mental Health Nurse, who spent time with the children sharing helpful strategies they can use to support themselves, as well as exploring the 5 Ways to Wellbeing in more detail.

To promote the strong link between physical and mental health, we also welcomed a personal trainer from a local gym who delivered engaging workshops for the children. The week ended on a high with a parent and child workout session after school, which was a fantastic way to come together as a community and celebrate healthy minds and healthy bodies.

We are incredibly proud of the way our school community continues to embrace and prioritise wellbeing and are delighted that this Wellbeing Week takes place during Children's Mental Health Week. 

Our Trust Vision:

Healthy minds Happy heart Bright Futures "Healthy Minds, Happy Hearts, Bright Futures" is more than a motto – it's our commitment to nurturing the whole child through an active, inclusive, and supportive environment.

We are united by a shared commitment to building joyful, inclusive school communities where every child and adult feels seen, supported, and inspired. Through a strong focus, that shapes the everyday experience of everyone with our school communities, on physical activity, mental wellbeing, and positive relationships, we build environments where children, families, staff, and the wider community are empowered to flourish and thrive—body and mind.

Together, we nurture a culture of belonging, resilience and ambition by prioritising wellbeing and fostering a love of learning.

We strongly support the Lead Well, Live Well, Move Well ethos through our well-established PE and school sport curriculum, which plays a key role in promoting both physical and mental wellbeing across the school.

Our Senior Learning Mentor does incredible work in supporting pupils’ mental health and emotional wellbeing. Through direct work with children, they provide guidance, strategies and a safe space for pupils who may need additional support.

We are also fortunate to have a dedicated Home School Link Worker who works tirelessly to support our families in a wide variety of ways. This includes providing care packages, arranging food bank vouchers, leading school-led Early Help support, working alongside Family Support Workers, and offering practical and emotional guidance to families when they need it most.

In addition, we work closely with Leigh, our Mental Health Support Nurse, who is in school weekly. Leigh carries out direct work with children, leads parenting groups, and offers drop-in sessions to ensure families and pupils can access timely and appropriate support. She is also on hand to support our staff.

Together, this strong network of care ensures that wellbeing is embedded throughout our school community and that both children and families feel supported, valued and heard.

We launched our Well Schools project by first gathering the views of parents and pupils through a survey. This valuable feedback allowed us to understand the needs and priorities of our school community and helped shape our next steps.

Using this information, we carefully planned a launch event which became our dedicated Wellbeing Week. The week was deliberately scheduled to coincide with Children’s Mental Health Week and Safer Internet Day, enabling us to strengthen key messages around mental health, online safety and overall wellbeing in a meaningful and joined-up way.

This ensured that our launch was not only celebratory, but purposeful and developed from the voices of our children and families.

Following this successful launch and impactful week, we are excited to continue developing and strengthening our practice to further support the mental health and wellbeing of our staff, pupils and families.

We remain committed to building on this momentum, ensuring that wellbeing continues to be embedded in our ethos, curriculum and wider school community, so that everyone feels supported, valued and able to thrive.