At Portway Infant's we value the importance of supporting children with their mental health.

Our intent is to support our children to feel safe and happy at school so they can achieve their potential and become happy global citizens and flourish in the wider community as they grow and learn. 

We implement positive mental health and well-being through taught PSHE lessons, our behaviour policy which is based on positive relationships with pupil well-being at its core and by recruiting the year 2 children to become well-being ambassadors. 

As a staff we constantly review the impact of the work we do with the children regarding their mental health and well-being. We strive to continue our professional development inline with new research and pedagogy. 

Well-being Ambassadors 

We are currently recruiting our new well-being ambassadors for this year. A job application and application form has been given to the year 2 teachers. Children who are interested can apply to become our school well-being ambassadors. 

Watch this space!

Zones of regulation 

At Portway we teach the children about the zones of regulation. We model how we are feeling represented by the colours: red, blue, green and yellow. Please see the picture below which gives examples of what each colour mean. 

Green zone: happy, focused, calm and proud 

Yellow zone: silly, frustrated, excited, worried

Blue zone: sick, sad, tired, bored 

Red zone: terrified, overjoyed/elated, angry, panicked

The children check themselves in each day so they can be mindful of how they are feeling. Their teacher and teaching assistant will support them to understand how they are feeling. The children's emotions will change throughout the day and we model this by moving them to a different coloured pot/basket etc. It is important that we reinforce that it is OK to be any of these emotions. We aren't aiming to move anyone out of a certain colour as we want to teach the children that all feelings are valid and we are practising recognising and acknowledging how we feel. 

Emotionally Healthy Schools 

The Emotionally Healthy Schools website is a great website with lots of information and resources to support children with their emotional health. There is a section of the website to help parents support their child's mental health and well-being.