At Chilthorne Domer, we believe that teaching about mental health and emotional wellbeing as part of a comprehensive PSHE curriculum is vital. PSHE is central to the curriculum across the whole school and assists pupils to cope with the changes at puberty, introduces them to a wider world, manage transitions and enables them to make an active contribution to their communities. The concepts covered in PSHE include keeping safe and managing risk, identity, equality, managing feelings and emotions, relationships, change, resilience and being healthy, which includes physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. We aim to promote pupils’ wellbeing through an understanding of their own and others’ emotions and the development of healthy coping strategies.

Good mental health and wellbeing is just as important as good physical health. Like physical health, mental health can range across a spectrum from healthy to unwell; it can fluctuate on a daily basis and change over time. We include World Mental Health Day and Mental Health Awareness Week in the school calendar and plan activities for the whole school.

At Chilthorne Domer we offer different levels of support:

Universal needs - the needs of all children and young people and opportunities to develop resilience

Additional needs - the needs of those made vulnerable at some time by life experiences

Targeted needs - the needs of those children and young people who need differentiated support and resources

Specialist needs - those children and young people who are having specialist intervention by trained professionals.