On Monday 1st November, our Trust brought together more than 800 teachers across 12 secondary school sites for a special day of professional learning.
Sessions delivered throughout the day included the launch of CMAT’s well-being and mental health strategy.
This training session, held at Sawtry Village Academy, included a lecture by keynote speaker, Sharon Gray, a Thrive Licensed Trainer and independent consultant. Sharon gave an insightful talk on the ‘The Thrive Approach’ and how it can be used to promote positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in children and young people.
This approach is particularly useful for those working in educational settings and provides training to equip adults with the knowledge, insights and resources needed to develop relationships that help children and young people to flourish and learn.
Sharon has supported a number of individual schools, Multi Academy Trust’s and Local Authorities to enable the best outcomes for all involved in educational settings during these challenging times, allowing students of all ages to reconnect and rebuild emotional resilience with a strong focus on relationships.
The session also included an introductory workshop delivered by CMAT’s Education Projects Director, Julie Chong.
In the workshop, Julie announced the Trust’s plans to deliver a wellbeing and mental health strategy to schools across the Trust. Working in groups, staff developed a communication plan and roadmap of how they would like to see this strategy delivered throughout the current academic year and beyond.
At CMAT, our core values of delivering a ‘High Quality Learning Environment’, ‘Achievement for All’ and ‘The Pursuit of Excellence’ depend upon us placing the continuing development of our expertise at the centre of our work.
We hope that by launching this mental health strategy, It will enable staff to be equipped with the right support and training needed to become a practitioner in their school. These practitioners can then use their expertise to share best practice, their skills and experience with supporting mental health and well-being with pupils across all schools.
The launch has already been well received by staff and we will now take the ideas shared in the workshop and incorporate them into the strategy.