EBS was awarded the ‘School Mental Health Award’ for supporting staff and students in a warm and nurturing environment. Read more about EBS Health & Wellbeing here. Email us 020 8344 2100
East Barnet School was delighted to be awarded the Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in Schools ‘School Mental Health Award’ at Silver Level in March 2020. The school was recognised by the Lead Coach as having a warm and nurturing environment where staff and students are well supported.
Key areas that were praised included:
The school is leading on a wide variety of mental health partnerships in the area. They are in a CPD hub with three other local secondary schools. EBS has shared it’s good practice and opened it’s doors to others to visit the school. Leaders of mental health and wellbeing have visited the other schools to advise them on how to improve. The school is continuing to develop key partnerships within and beyond the borough such as the Resilience School Programme and has linked with outside agencies such as iHeart, Papyrus, the Autism Champion Programme and Feminista.
At East Barnet School, we recognise how difficult the pandemic has been for our students and their families. Staff are always available to speak to and offer support. In addition to the school, there are many networks within the local area that are able to help. We have put links to these here, in one place so that you can access them freely.
Apps for young people: Please check if there are any additional fees in connection with these apps before you sign up.
MindShift is a free app designed to help teens and young adults cope with anxiety. It can help you change how you think about anxiety. Rather than trying to avoid anxiety, you can make an important shift and face it. Lists symptoms of anxiety. Offers strategies to manage worry, panic, conflict, ordinary anxiety, and three specialised categories of anxiety: test anxiety, social anxiety, and perfectionism. Also contains relaxation exercises.
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This is a meditation and sleep app. Helps to improve sleep practices and includes stories, calming sounds as well as guided meditations, relaxing music and simple mindfulness mediations. Suitable for ages from 4+.
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Headspace is a world-renowned mindfulness app, suitable for both children and adults, with an enormous variety of different practices to help with anxiety, sleep, focus, motivation, stress, compassion, kindness, gratitude, etc. Free trial available, annual fee thereafter.
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Explore and enhance your self-care practices and enjoy improved mental health and wellbeing. Suitable for ages from 4+.
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Mindfulness is taught during Triple-E lessons to support students. Established in 2013, the Mindfulness Programme was a pioneering EBS initiative when Mindfulness was almost unheard of in schools. Mindfulness is in our vocabulary and widely understood in our community; we give students the knowledge and skills to use Mindfulness in their lives as and when required.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness trains the brain to shift focus and attention to the present moment, increasing awareness and enabling acceptance of experiences. Mindfulness has been proven, through extensive scientific research, (The British Medical Council, NHS and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE)) to improve emotional health and wellbeing. Mindfulness can benefit students in a variety of ways from exam anxiety to increasing lesson focus and handling adolescent pressure in a fast-paced technological world.
EBS has also trained and registered with the nationwide Mindfulness In Schools Project and offers the acclaimed ‘.b’ curriculum consisting of tailored lessons combining neuroscience and practical activities in an easy to understand format that makes learning fun. Click here for more information.
We recognise Mindfulness isn’t for everyone. We are all different, but what is important is to be self-aware and understand how our mind works; how our thoughts are not always facts. We can create anxiety by telling ourselves stories that aren’t true, that make us feel overwhelmed and create high levels of stress.
It is therefore important to self-regulate, increase our resilience and recognise when we make things worse for ourselves. When the iHeart (Innate Health Education and Resilience Training) opportunity arose, we jumped at the chance to offer another wellbeing course that is different to Mindfulness but complements it and suits some students more. This new initiative was previously delivered to Year 8s during Triple-E. We will continue to increase the opportunities to other year groups. Click here for more information.
ECHO Counselling has been a professional service for students since 2009; one of the few schools to provide an in-house service managed exclusively by two fully-trained staff counsellors; Ms Virides and Mrs Young.
ECHO Counsellors work predominantly from a personcentred perspective but may apply other therapeutic theories, proven effective in helping young people. Although EBS is well-known for its excellent pastoral care, sometimes, students need extra, emotional support with transition, friendship issues, a family break-up, bereavement, trauma, self-esteem, and more recently the lockdown; the list is endless. Our service provides a safe and relaxed environment without fear of repercussions or judgement and with the reassurance of strict confidentiality.
It has been a busy time for Mrs Idrees and the Wellbeing Warriors; positively promoting mental health and wellbeing. Not only are they helping others find ways to overcome their challenges, they are also providing a platform for people to become more open-minded and feel comfortable to talk about and address mental health issues. Students are helped with firmer friendships; a happier homelife; schoolwork support and inspiring individuality. All done through activities, clubs and being available when needed. The Warriors plan to do even more – check out their notice board for the latest news.
