Wycombe Abbey Recognised for Providing Outstanding Wellbeing Provision to Pupils

Wycombe Abbey has recently been awarded the Wellbeing Award for Schools from the National Children's Bureau and Optimus Education. This award recognises outstanding work to promote mental health and wellbeing within school communities across England.

The School is committed to ensuring that a positive environment allows joy to ring loud and happiness to bloom but equally recognising the responsibility and duty to ensure that young people entrusted in their care leave School with the tools to face challenges with resilience and can step into their future lives with excitement, a deep understanding of self and the bravery to seek support whenever needed.

Eager to learn, reflect and build on the wellbeing provision, Wycombe Abbey embarked on the three-year process of achieving the Award, the creation of which was based on the research of Professor Kathy Weare. The award asks schools to demonstrate how they work to promote social and emotional wellbeing and have robust procedures to support and respond well to mental health problems that those within our School community may experience.

The framework for the award is based on solid research, and the School had to provide a huge amount of evidence to show a journey of critical reflection, action planning and change for each of the eight key objectives.

The assessment day at the end of last term involved the assessor speaking to pupils, staff and parents, and a deep dive into the evidence.

Highlights from the assessor’s report include:

• Pupils felt very well-supported, particularly by their House staff and peers within their House Family.
• There is a strong sense of belonging, of self and self-confidence amongst pupils.
• Parents felt that their children were safe, loved and well looked after and commented on the value of the House system.
• PSHE/Wellbeing education gave pupils information in an age and stage-appropriate manner, and parents echoed this too.
• There is a strong commitment to CPD around mental health and wellbeing, with plans in place for future development.

Wycombe Abbey's important work in this area will not stand still now that they have achieved the award. The School will continue to reflect, develop and move forward with what they do and what they offer with regard to wellbeing and mental health provision.