Crawley primary school puts pupil wellbeing first

Pupils at St Margaret's understanding friendship through a new learning tool

St Margaret’s C of E Primary School in lfield was one of the first schools in the country to sign up to Discovery Education Health and Relationships – a new digital PSHE programme which helps pupils to learn about mental health and cope with change.

Designed to help teachers deliver the new Relationships and Health Education (RHE) curriculum, the programme also teaches children about the importance of healthy and happy friendships and different types of families. Child-led videos feature children talking about key topics while role play activities help pupils to explore issues that affect their lives.

St Margaret’s is using Health and Relationships as part of a special ‘recovery curriculum’, which helps children adjust to being back at school and supports their wellbeing post lockdown. Sam Winton, Deputy Headteacher, says it’s having a positive impact across the school.

“The programme helps pupils to focus on their mental health which is so important during the pandemic. Returning to school in September post lockdown, some children hadn’t seen their peers for a very long time. Learning about healthy relationships helped them to re-establish their friendships.”

St Margaret’s champions diversity, and teachers were pleased to find that this was also reflected in the digital resources.

“Health and Relationships teaches children about diversity in lots of different ways and reflects our diverse society. What’s really nice is that the topics are very relevant and important for today. With everything that’s happening in the world at the moment, we find that it really supports our teaching.”

Looking ahead to 2021, Health and Relationships will continue to be at the centre of the school’s recovery curriculum.

“ Health and Relationships is a brilliant resource. It’s given us confidence to approach challenging topics and our pupils are very engaged. The programme has heightened mental health awareness across the whole school community, which is more important now than ever. It’s helped us to put wellbeing first.”