Coppice Valley Primary School in Harrogate school has achieved the School Mental Health Award.
The award is delivered by the Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in Schools and Coppice Valley Primary School was awarded a Gold standard for its outstanding mental health and wellbeing provision.
Coppice Valley Primary School provides a wide range of activities to boost the wellbeing of pupils and staff, including mindfulness sessions, a whole school mental health curriculum and working closely with local services like Compass Buzz and Children & Adolescent Mental Health Services.
The school has also created a bespoke mental health offer within school to support pupils in need of individualised support. Coppice Valley has published a Mental Health & Wellbeing Provision document for parents and a child-friendly version for pupils. This gives details of support available from the school and pathways to external services to positively benefit children’s mental health.
Coppice Valley Head teacher, Emma Meadus said:
I am extremely proud of the mental health offer we provide at Coppice Valley for all pupils. Achieving this award is a fantastic recognition of all the hard work of the whole school community to create our mental health provision.
Sam Wright, Coppice Valley pupil wellbeing worker said:
Working towards the award over the last year gave me the perfect opportunity to audit our mental health provision for the whole school. I was able to see what we were doing well and which areas we could improve on. We’ve built a robust offer for all our children through the award-process.
A focal point of the school’s mental health and wellbeing provision is the weekly Personal, Social & Health Education lesson which includes essential learning for all children of all ages about ways to look after our mental health. Each year, the school celebrates Children’s Mental Health Week with a series of special events for the children and their families including workshops about the Five Ways to Wellbeing, family breakfasts and meditation in our wildlife area.
The award was established in 2017 by the Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in Schools – part of Leeds Beckett University – and social enterprise Minds Ahead.
The Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in Schools aims to strengthen pupils’ mental health by supporting schools to make a positive change at all levels of the UK’s education system, improving students’ outcomes and life chances.
Professor Damien Page, Dean of Leeds Beckett’s Carnegie School of Education, said:
Achieving this award is not just recognition of a whole-school approach to mental health, it’s a recognition of the school’s commitment to improving the life chances of children.
We’re truly proud to have worked with Coppice Valley in this vital work and look forward to further collaboration.
Nationally, more than 800 schools have signed up to take part in the mental health award.
Dean Johnstone, founder and CEO of Minds Ahead said:
This award shines a light on the excellent work schools are doing to promote mental health for their community of children and adults.
It is thrilling and humbling to learn about Coppice Valley and the many other schools engaged in the quality award process. I’d like to offer my congratulations on this deserved recognition.
