Staying Safe and Well

Well-being and Healthy Living

Well-being is important to us in order to be successful learners. At Wrington we encourage happy, healthy children who understand the things we can do to be safe and to thrive. We hope that good well-being habits developed in the early years will promote life-long health and well-being.

Gardening

Our organic gardens were relocated following the installation of the Y3 classroom and we hope that they will continue to provide some of the ingredients for next year’s Harvest lunch! We value having such opportunities to grow our own vegetables ably supported by one of our teachers and other generous members of the community. We have an African ‘Keyhole’ garden following the visit from a Ugandan farmer who helped us to learn about the challenges and opportunities of farming in Uganda. Our curriculum is enriched through our strong links with two local ‘Farm link’ farms where children learn the important food journey from the seed to the plate in a real life context.

PE

Sport flourishes at our school! Class teachers enjoy teaching Physical Education with their classes; we employ sports coaches as part of the Legacy project from the Olympics to work alongside members of staff at intervals during the year for CPD to develop and enhance their PE teaching skills. The school is always eager to take part in local and regional competitive sport, led by our enthusiastic PE lead, Ms Matthews, and we have enjoyed great success over the last year in cross country, football, and dodgeball, even getting in to the national finals! Sports values are fundamental to participation in PE. Perhaps our greatest achievement was being awarded the ‘Fair Play’ award at the Tag Rugby National Finals. The trophy may be our smallest but it is still a great source of pride!

Many of our staff have a keen interest in sport and participate in local teams. Many children opt for additional sport after school: we have a number of sports clubs run by both external providers (e.g. Football, Multi-Skills) as well as by our talented internal staff (e.g. netball). Creative physical activity achieves similar success through participation in dance festivals and performances and we enjoy collaborating with Churchill Academy (secondary school with Performing Arts specialism) for specialist dance teaching in preparation for our participation in a dance festival at Weston Playhouse.

At our celebration service, the Head Teacher presents certificates and awards from activities that have taken place outside school (e.g. Horse riding, swimming) as well as internal school awards; activity and success within and outside the school day is encouraged.

Food, glorious food!
We are very fortunate to have our wonderful catering team who cook delicious healthy meals for us (children and teachers!). Our kitchen was installed in October 2011 and it has made a great difference to the school.  Aspens, our catering company, have been awarded the prestigious  ‘Food for Life’ award which promotes healthy and nutritious meals. We enjoy promoting special themed meals which are very popular (eg Bonfire lunch). Our last Harvest lunch for our whole community including parents and grandparents, prepared in part by the children, was generally regarded as the best yet with over 200 people sitting down to delicious soup followed by apple flapjack! We have adapted this in 2021 due to Covid whereby parents were invited to join us for a 'Welcome Wednesday lunch' with children from a single class. A delicious roast dinner was had by all!

Well-being week

Although we try to promote well being at all times, we are delighted to shine a spotlight on this during our annual ‘Well being week’, an opportunity for the whole school to improve their understanding of health, safety and wellbeing. We use inspiring resources and visitors to make a real impact on the children’s learning. The RNLI, Dogs' Trust, E safety talks from the police, the fire service are all examples of our support of the children’s well-being. Parents are encouraged to get involved in attending parent workshops to improve their understanding (details in the newsletter).

Well-being  awards and research

We were delighted to receive a  new  Healthy Schools Award  last year (2021). We have an Eco team who work to improve the school’s environment and to promote global eco issues. They help us to care for our immediate environment and have consideration for the wellbeing of our world.

We love getting involved in research. In the past we were very pleased to support Year 5 who took part in a ‘Health for Life’ research project with Bristol University. 

The Arts

The Arts are central to the life of the school and we have been awarded Sing up Silver as well as Artsmark Gold. We recognise how Arts activities such as music and drama can really improve well-being and bring a smile to many faces – audience and participants! We have two thriving choirs(KS1 and KS2), an orchestra and individual instrumentalists. The staff themselves even perform  in public such as the staff chime bar ensemble at our Christmas Candlelit carol service which is always met with enthusiastic support from the packed church! At Christmas we also form a special adult choir which includes parents, staff and governors and is conducted by our Head Teacher.

Well-being in our environment

We are very fortunate to have such lovely grounds with green space that promote well being. On our large field is the prize winning willow circle from Chelsea Garden Show which was generously donated to the school along with the natural driftwork storyteller chair. We have the  Diamond Jubilee Garden with its viewing platform into the conservation area with its pond (designed by children). We are currently developing a spiritual area to enable quiet reflection at the side of the field and we are very grateful for the funding from the United Reformed Church who are supporting this exciting project.

When things feel tricky...

There are times when things may feel tricky inside and our well-being is low. Children are always encouraged to share their worries so that we can help. There are worry boxes in classrooms for writing any concerns and we have a Learning Mentor who works with children; although, they can always talk to any member of staff for support. We also have Playground Buddies who help others. For more information, see the Well-Being and Mental Health Page.