St. Andrew's is delighted to have been awarded the Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in Schools ‘School Mental Health Award’ – Silver Status in partnership with Schools Advisory Service.

At St. Andrew’s, we are committed to supporting children and staff with their wellbeing and mental health. We know that wellbeing, physical and mental health are all vital to successful learning.

Meet our Wellbeing Team 

All staff contribute to the wellbeing of our children however within school, we are fortunate to also have a dedicated Wellbeing Team:

CASY Counselling Service 

CASY (Counselling and Support for Young People) is a registered charity and provides confidential counselling and support to young people. The service offers young people an opportunity to speak to a trained counsellor in confidence about any issue of importance to them. CASY counsellors are carefully selected for their experience and their ability to understand the pressures and conflicts young people face today. All counsellors are checked through the Criminal Records Bureau to assess their suitability to work with young people.

Our CASY counsellor is Jess Turncroft.

The ethos of counselling is to help children learn how to help themselves in a safe, supportive environment. The main aims of counselling are:

1. To support the child to make changes in their life

2. To learn to understand and cope with difficult emotions

3. To identify specific problems

4. To identify goals the child would like to work on

For further information on CASY, please visit their website: www.casy.org.uk

Student Wellbeing Champions

To support staff in promoting the importance of positive wellbeing and mental health throughout school, we have appointed seven Student Wellbeing Champions.  Children applied for the role by completing application forms and the successful candidates were selected then received training from practitioners from the outreach service ‘Healthy Minds’.  The Student Wellbeing Champion role includes supporting our Cheerful Tuesday and Thoughtful Thursday Collective Worships, keeping an Emotional Wellbeing Information Board up to date with updates and information and helping other children in school access help from an adult if necessary. We are extremely proud of our Wellbeing Champions. 

Useful links and resources

Here are a number of websites and resources for both children and adults which promote emotional, social and mental wellbeing. 

Top Tips to support your child's mental health:

According to the BBC website, the lockdown has seen an increase in children under 11 seeking counselling, according to charities such as Childline and the NSPCC.

In a short and informative video, which you can watch by clicking on the image below (BBC News webpage), Educational Psychologist, Abigail Wright, shares five tips to help parents keep their children’s mental health on track.

Click on the image above for the Pig of Happiness story