At Holy Cross, we believe that social and emotional well-being is important in its own right because it impacts on everything that helps a child  to flourish and be the person they deserve to be. Within our school,  we create an atmosphere that is conducive to helping a child feel safe and secure. All of our staff are alert to recognising when one of our children is not flourishing and they take steps to find the reasons why.

We offer a wide range of support:

ELSA (Emotional, Literacy Support Assistant)

An educational psychology led intervention for promoting the emotional well-being of children and young people.

An ELSA in a school is an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant.  Examples of things covered are social skills, emotions, bereavement, social stories and therapeutic stories, anger management, self-esteem, counselling skills such as solution focus and friendship.  Mrs Ward is our trained Teacher Assistant for this programme.

Meet the worry monster family. Children are encouraged to pass their worries on to our worry monster family so that they aren’t carrying worries around all day. 

Having opportunity to communicate feelings is part of the ELSA programme.

The Worry Monster Poem

I’m your little worry monster

I am always here

When worries pop into your head

Don’t let them turn to fear

Take a piece of paper

Make sure you write your name

Explain your worry

Write it clear and plain

Put the worry into my mouth

And let me eat the fear

Put a smile upon your face

Then give a great big cheer!

©Debbie Palphreyman 2016

www.elsa-support.co.uk

Route to Resilience 

Funded as part of the local NHS Future in Mind programme, Route to Resilience is an evidence- based and practical approach to supporting schools and families in their work developing the emotional well-being and resilience of children and young people. We have now incorporated this into our work on Virtues.

Holy Cross has now completed and been accredited as a “Routes to Resilience,” school.  We are very proud to be able to support our children’s well being in an additional way.

School Nurse

Children can be referred to the school nurse service by the school.  We work closely with parents to identify pupil needs and signpost them to this service if needed.