At Heathcote School, we believe in promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing. Prioritising the wellbeing of pupils and staff ensures that good learning and teaching can take place, and that the school is a community where everyone feels able to thrive. 

Mental Health - “is a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” - World Health Organisation.

At Heathcote School we define mental health and well-being as having a healthy and positive attitude towards mind, body and soul so that you can be at your best and have choices in life.

Heathcote School aims to support each pupil with their emotional health and wellbeing.  This includes promoting positive mental health. As a staff body we approach this in various ways, including through our safeguarding team, pastoral team, tutor time programmes, PIE lessons and external visitors. We are fortunate enough to have our own counsellor and Lead Therapist and access to a number of therapeutic services, which currently offer Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Group Therapy sessions, Music therapy and Drama therapy. Pupils also benefit from the staff in the Oak provision on site. All pupils are entitled to be referred to this service.  We also work in partnership with our Mental Health Services Team in Waltham Forest.

The teenage years are both exciting and challenging for parents and carers. It can be hard to know whether a teenager's feelings and behaviour are normal or becoming a problem. 

For any pupil who may be experiencing poor mental health we have qualified Mental Health First Aiders along with our safeguarding team who are available to listen, offer advice, mentor or signpost parents/pupils to agencies who can offer guidance. We also have appointed Mental Health Ambassadors who lead on mental health campaigns across the school and provide a peer listening service with the Year 7 form groups they are attached to. They are trained in signposting pupils to agencies who can offer support and guidance.

As part of our mental health and well-being strategy we have appointed Anti-Bullying Ambassadors. They work closely with the School Leaders at Heathcote to improve the well-being of pupils to ensure that there is a culture of zero tolerance and that pupils feel able to understand what bullying is and are confident to report it to staff if it happens. This is a wonderful opportunity for pupil leadership and we are grateful for the role they provide.

We want to ensure that all parents and pupils know what support is out there. If you are in any way concerned for your child and would like more information, please see our Mental Health and Well-being Resource Library below specifically relating to those issues and concerns most common to secondary school aged children and young adults.

At Heathcote School we have a designated Mental Health and Well-Being team. Please do contact them if you need to discuss mental health and well-being.

Role	Name	Contact Details
Assistant Head Teacher - Senior lead for Mental Health and Well-being	Katie Morrison	kmorrison@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk
Lead Therapist	Catherine Vase	cvase@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk
SEMH Manager/OAK	Hannah Randall	hrandall@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk
Counsellor	Bedia Cetin	bcetin@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk
Department Lead for Philosophy Identity and Ethics (PIE)	Samantha Donoghue	sdonoghue@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk
Assistant Head Teacher – Safeguarding Lead	Neil Hutchins	nhutchins@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk
Medical Officer	Michelle Heath	mheath@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk
Mental Health First Aider	Morgan Hodson	mhodson@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk
Mental Health First Aider	Caroline Warden	cwarden@heathcote.waltham.sch.uk

 

Please see below for a list of organisations that can help with mental health and wellbeing. If you would like to download a PDF version please click here.