Family Support
In every family there are times where life can be a tough. Either tough for a family as a whole, or a challenge for an individual child.
It could be that a family member is unwell, there has been a family separation or bereavement. There could be other factors causing pressure within the family, such as financial hardship. A child could be struggling with friendships in or out of school, with ill health or lacking in confidence. Often in families it can also be a challenge setting appropriate boundaries, following through with these and enforcing routines. Perhaps you or your child is struggling to ensure their attendance or time keeping is in our 'green zone'.
If you, your family or your child would like someone to talk to or some support, then contact Mrs Miller, our Care, Guidance and Support Leader. Mrs Miller is available in school and actively supports our children and families on a daily basis. Mrs Miller is there for a coffee and a chat and can also sign post you to other agencies for support if and when appropriate.
If you would like to arrange to meet Mrs Miller or would like to contact her via email, then either ring the school office on 0191 8141455 or email Mrs Miller directly on berni.miller@kingedward.org
Mrs Miller - Care, Guidance and Support Leader
Mental Health
Mental Health issues affect children and young people as well as adults, with more than 850,000 children in the UK having been diagnosed with a mental health condition.
Happy, Caring and Achieving!
King Edward Primary School seeks to ensure that every member of our community is happy, cared for and achieves. We are all aware that positive mental health is key to being happy and achieving and we are committed to ensuring that an ethos of positive mental health is at the heart of all that we do.
Our aim is to increase the awareness and understanding and reduce stigma amongst children, staff and our wider community of issues involving the mental health and wellbeing of young people and to provide support at an early stage to any child who is or appears to be suffering from mental health issues.
At King Edward we promote positive mental health. We offer a community of support, and will ensure that:
- we help our children to build emotional resilience
- we help our children to develop self-esteem
- we help our children to develop confidence
- we help our children to develop their social skills
- we help our children to feel valued and a part of King Edward
We are passionate about making a difference to the lives of young people and we actively promote the values of resilience, self- awareness, kindness and compassion. Our committed staff sets a whole school culture of positive mental health and wellbeing, values that everyone understands, believes in and is prepared to strive for.
At King Edward Primary School, we offer the following strategies to support your child:
- A RSHE curriculum that is designed to support children’s understanding of their emotions. We are enabling our children to become healthy, independent, responsible and confident members of society. Children will understand how they are developing personally and socially and many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up will be tackled. They will be provided with opportunities to learn about rights and responsibilities and to appreciate what it means to live and thrive as part of a diverse society.
- Yoga and Mindfulness, beginning in Nursery and built upon as they move through school. We ensure that, through the promotion of positive mental health and wellbeing, our children are helped to understand and express their feelings, build their confidence and emotional resilience and therefore their capacity to learn.
- We provide high levels of Pastoral Support and access many outside agencies including counselling. External agencies can include Kalmer counselling, Young Carers, Bottled Up counselling and others.
- We work in close partnership with outside agencies including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) and the Educational Psychology team.
Whatever issues our children or their families face, we are committed to supporting everyone to making a real positive difference to their lives. We believe that a resolution to any issue begins with a conversation and so we encourage all our children to talk openly about issues that they may be facing and equip our staff to be mindful of children’s emotional and mental well-being.
Harbour
Harbour offers a counselling service to those who have experiences violene or abuse. For more information click the links below:
Social Media
Safeguarding both adults and children is about preventing the risk of harm from abuse or exploitation or having the ability to reduce it by raising awareness and supporting people in making informed decisions. The police have created a number of guides to support families in this area.
Operation Encompass
What is Operation Encompass?
The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in a domestic abuse incident. Following an incident at home, children will often arrive at school distressed, upset and unprepared for the day.
North Tyneside Council, the police and nominated Key Adults in school (Kate Byrne and Berni Miller) work together to make sure that school staff are made aware of an incident early enough to support pupils school.
Why was Operation Encompass introduced in North Tyneside?
Operation Encompass was initially launched in Plymouth in February 2011 to address a shortcoming in early sharing of information with schools. Since then several pilots have been set up across the UK, including Gateshead and South Tyneside, and has proved to be very successful in providing appropriate support in a timely manner. Pilots across the UK have reported positive outcomes for many children and young people.
North Tyneside Council, Northumbria Police and all schools in the borough are now taking part in the scheme, to help provide additional support which will benefit children and young people in North Tyneside and improve multi-agency sharing of information.
How does it work?
Schools across North Tyneside nominate two members of staff who will be known as Key Adults. All Key Adults attend specific training to the role in preparation for Operation Encompass.
Each morning a police officer reviews all domestic abuse incidents that occur outside of school but which might have had an impact on a child attending school the following day. Where children were present, witnessed or involved in a domestic abuse incident and aged between 4 and 16 years old, the officer sends this information to Children's Social Care Front Door Service.
Staff from the Front Door Service send this information in a secure format to the identified Key Adult. The Key Adult checks their emails every day and the staff in contact with those pupils will then be in an informed position to support them in a way that is right for the child.
This information is shared on school days during school term and, when incidents occur on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or over a holiday period, the police will contact the Front Door the following Monday.
All parents were sent a letter from school informing them about Operation Encompass when it began. Operation Encompass was launched in North Tyneside in June 2016.
