Mental Health and Wellbeing

Mrs Kirsty Taylor
Mental Health & Wellbeing Lead at Penrice Academy

No one is immune to suffering from mental health issues at any point in life. This is why we offer an immense amount of support on offer here at Penrice Academy. But before we share further information on this webpage, if you are student struggling with your mental health and are searching for help, please head to the school’s Student Family Centre for immediate support. Alternatively, if it is out of school hours, please complete our ‘Are You OK?’ online form and we will help you on the very next school day.

Trauma-Informed School

Promoting positive mental health and supporting vulnerable children and young people is at the heart of our work and the quality of the provision throughout the school is excellent. This has been acknowledged by our recent Trauma Informed Schools Award – the first Secondary School in the country to achieve this prestigious award.

Penrice Academy is the first Secondary School in the UK to achieve this prestigious award.

Every student is taught in a compassionate classroom and our staff have fully embedded a range of strategies to ensure the wellbeing of our young people is of paramount importance. Every Year Group also participates in focused wellbeing registrations through the academic year focusing on Wellbeing and experiencing a range of activities designed to develop skills such as mindfulness, resilience and self-care.

Some of our wellbeing interventions include:

TIS (Trauma Informed Schools) one-to-one support
One-to-one mentoring
Group work
Gender support
Behaviour Management
Attendance Support
Social and Emotional Support
Young Carers
TIS Group Work
Emotional First Aid/ Mental Health Support
CAF/FGC Advocates Signposting to Outside Agencies
School Counsellor
School Support Dogs
and our TIS Tortoise!

We also produce a fortnightly ‘Us Plus’ bulletin that shares key information around mental health and wellbeing and is emailed to all staff and students and published on our website.

We have a team of TIS accredited practitioners who can support individuals and also work with small groups using their specialised training to enable our young people to develop appropriate strategies to support their wellbeing. The ‘Us Plus’ staff team also share their knowledge within departments to enable staff to employ up to date and relevant support strategies in their classrooms. Our ‘Us Plus’ student team are also trained to promote positive mental health and support their peer group through the Penrice journey.

Us Plus Student Mentors

Our support strategies are bespoke to each individual child and situation. Our aim is to ensure every student who faces challenges that negatively impact on their ability to thrive has access to an Emotionally Available Adult who will help them develop the necessary skills to overcome the challenges and achieve their best possible outcomes.

For more information about mental health support at Penrice, please contact: Mrs Kirsty Taylor ktaylor@penrice.org.uk