Cornish school becomes first in the UK to get a gold award for supporting pupil's mental health
They achieved this feet in a quarter of time expected of them
A Cornish school is leading the way in terms of mental health support - and have become the first in the UK to receive a gold award for their work.
This award - from the Teaching Times publication and assistive technology company Microlink - was achieved by Trewirgie Junior school in four months.
We're told it was expected to have taken them twelve.
To get this award - the school has introduced various ways of supporting the wellbeing of their pupils.
For example, Trewirgie Juniors in Redruth have introduced a dedicated wellbeing team for their students, hired a counsellor and are running wellbeing sessions to built their kids' confidence.
They also trained a designated ‘emotionally available adult' to support their pupils in every year group.
Speaking on why this mental health programme was introduced, Headteacher Jane Sargent said:
"Times are pretty hard at the moment for families and the community.
"We recognise how difficult life is and as such, we wanted to engage in a programme that helped us further develop our practices.
"We hope that this will allow us to support our children to thrive through such adversity."
"I think my advice to other schools would be to engage in the programme.
"We all recognise that things are only going to get harder, so I think that the more we develop our understanding of what's going on in children's lives, the more equipped we will be to help them."
Dan Wills, the school's Senior Mental Health Lead, said this on why he thinks the programme is necessary:
"What we found is that the services we would usually reach out to for our pupil's wellbeing aren't there anymore - or they are there but are oversubscribed and underfunded.
"We're battling with a two-year waiting list at some services for support.
"This is why we've had to bring these things in-house - so we can react and support our pupil's straight away."