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Wellbeing
School Diversity Week - June 2024
The charity "Just Like Us" co-ordinates School Diversity Week which is an opportunity to bring together our school community and celebrate our differences. It is taking place nationwide in the week beginning 24th of June.
School Diversity Week is focused on the awareness and inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community. Students at Loreto Grammar School will have the opportunity to listen to an assembly delivered by Mrs Bradbury and Mr Sykes on the theme of diversity week, followed by a form time lesson on Thursday.
I do hope you are able to continue the conversations with your daughter around this important theme. As Pope Francis teaches us, "we are all children of God, and God loves us as we are and for the strength that each of us fights for our dignity."
School-Diversity-Week-June-2024.pdf
Vaping & Apps
In order to keep our young people safe, we look for opportunities to share information with you, our parents/carers. We have become very concerned about vaping and the popularity of two apps that you may not be familiar with. Further information below.
We know from student voice activities that young people are more likely to let an adult at home know if they are worried or concerned and we encourage you to continue having conversations with your children.
Parents-Safety-Spotlight-vaping-and-apps
Parents' Wellbeing Evenings
To develop the relationship with our parents/carers we introduced Parents’ Wellbeing Evenings. These evenings have covered a range of topics and have utilised a variety of approaches such as presentations delivered by external speakers and staff led workshops. Parents are regularly asked for feedback relating to these Evenings and this feedback has been used to inform future Well-being Evenings.
These evenings have been very well received and parents’ comments have included; “really impressive that Loreto is doing so much in regards to Wellbeing”, “ informative, thought provoking, reassuring and insightful” and “an enlightening evening allowing me to go home armed with information to help my daughter.”
Topics covered so far are;
Child-on-Child Abuse
Eating disorders
Grooming
Anxiety
PSHCE/RSE
Internet safety
Vaping
Our latest Parents' Wellbeing Evening on 22 February 2024 included really informative input from Early Break covering many questions that parents had about vaping. They have kindly allowed us to share the following resources that we hope you find useful.
Early-Break-Vaping-Parents-and-Carers.pdf
Mental wellbeing
Students’ mental wellbeing is supported in a number of ways in School, from the structures that we have in place which includes a clear focus on the importance of community and belonging, a 1 hour lunch time to allow time to attend clubs or to be with friends (which we know is so important to our students), the significant role of the form tutor and the importance of being known and a focus on ‘right relationships’. We also have adults who can support students such as pastoral mentors, the chaplain and the School Counsellor. All staff have received bespoke mental wellbeing training and the Pastoral Team has had additional training in areas such as suicide prevention, eating disorders and anxiety.
We have also secured the support of Trafford Mental Health Support Team (MHST), more details below, which gives us access to two additional mental health colleagues.
Trafford Mental Health Support Team
MHST 'New beginnings & resilience' Newsletter, Sept 2023
MHST 'World Mental Health Day 2022' Newsletter
We are also very proud to have a Mental Health Working Party (MHWP) which is a group of students and staff that meet to identify and plan strategies to support students’ mental health. To date they have completed an audit of support, created and prioritised strategies and have been important in creating initiatives such as the introduction of 5-Minute Catch Up Time and poster campaigns. They were also able to contribute to the consultation that took place before the school’s new Behaviour Management Policy was introduced in September 2019. The MHWP creates a mental wellbeing newsletter each term that is shared with all students, please see copies below.
MHWP Newsletter - Christmas 2024
MHWP Newsletter - Christmas 2023
The MHWP is just one example of giving our students a voice; many others exist such as School Council, the Eco group and student surveys where we monitor students’ understanding of their own mental and physical health. The MHWP looks to continue to develop strategies to support the mental health of students at Loreto and aims to increase the profile of their work as well as emphasising what Loreto does to support everyone’s wellbeing.
Useful websites
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TLC: Talk, Listen, Change
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Beat: The UK's Eating Disorder Charity
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Papyrus: UK Suicide Prevention
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Young Minds: Mental Health Charity
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Mind: Anxiety and Panic Attacks
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Trafford Directory
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