Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Support

The school has a designated member of staff (Mrs Guerin-Hassett), who works with students and families to support students with their wellbeing and mental health. Mrs Guerin-Hassett also works closely with the school counsellor, the Emotional Wellbeing Practitioner team and external professionals; including NELFT and the Early Help Team.

The school has access to ten hours per week of designated counselling from a trained counsellor (Mrs Talbot). We also have access to a trainee counsellor who provides additional support to Year 13 students only. Counselling referrals can be made for a variety of factors and give students the access to one-hour of support each week for an initial period of six weeks.

Our key pastoral staff (Heads of Year, and Student Wellbeing Manager) have completed mental health awareness training. This ensures that those pastoral staff working directly with students have a thorough understanding of how best to support students with their emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Mental Health First Aid

The school has a dedicated Mental Health First Aider (Ms C Phillips) who has completed additional training to provide support to students.

In September 2022, the school will be working with Project Salus to launch Peer Mentors – 30 students who will be trained mentors to support any students who are finding particular areas of school life difficult. This could be for general struggles around settling in and the transition to secondary school, struggling with anxiety or simply needing that additional person to talk about how they are feeling.

The school has access to an Emotional Wellbeing Practitioner, who is allocated to the school through NELFT every week, and delivers support through group sessions to students around managing anxiety.

In April 2022, the school launched the new RGS Wellbeing Hub, a dedicated space within the school constructed to offer support to students for emotional and mental health. Mrs Guerin-Hassett (Student Wellbeing Manager) oversees this space, with the room being open every lunchtime for drop-ins, and for students to refer themselves to receive additional support where required.

The school has a trained Emotional Literacy Support Assistant – Ms Groves, who works with five students per week over an initial six-week period to develop support strategies for students with their emotional and social skills.

Support delivered by a MIND practitioner to students on a one to one basis within school.

Students have access to a free and anonymous counselling service delivered by trained counsellors through the app Kooth. The service is completely free to all young people and also offers support through the in-app features that are also available for all students to use. More information can be found by visiting www.kooth.com