At Mount Anville Primary School we believe that wellbeing is at the heart of a positive and thriving school community. One of our recently ratified policies that supports this belief is the Bí Cineálta Policy. This policy outlines clear procedures to prevent and address bullying behaviour. It is grounded in a child-rights-based approach and fosters a collaborative environment where pupils, staff and the wider school community work together to ensure everyone feels safe, respected and included.
Our Student Council has created a pupil-friendly version of the policy to ensure that all children understand how to recognise bullying behaviour, how to prevent it and what to do if it occurs. Our Bí Cineálta Rule is simple:
“Treat others as you would like to be treated.” If we see something, we say something.
We also use our Tell 5 strategy, a colourful handprint poster with five trusted adults children can turn to: the Principal, the Deputy Principal, their Class Teacher, SNAs, and Learning Support Teachers. This encourages children to speak up and ensures they know they are never alone.
A priority focus in our school is to develop our pupil’s wellbeing. This is achieved by creating a positive culture and environment which helps to foster our pupil’s wellbeing, allowing children to access curricular activities which promote their physical, social and emotional competencies, incorporating wellbeing promotion into our whole school policies and practices, and by ensuring that our pupils, their parents and our whole school community work in partnership to actively contribute to wellbeing promotion.
Across all class levels the SPHE curriculum is prioritised and the Walk Tall, Relationships and Sexuality Education and Stay Safe programmes are taught comprehensively. From 2nd to 6th class the Weaving Wellbeing Programme is delivered. This is a positive mental health programme designed to enhance children’s wellbeing.
Children are encouraged to pursue and develop their own unique skillset and talents in our school during Christmas Plays, the choir, the annual 6th class musical, “Ceol sa Halla” during Seachtain na Gaeilge and by representing our school on the sporting field. Pupils are also encouraged to stay active in PE, during our active flag initiatives and through involvement in our various sports teams.
Student voice is valued in our school and listening to our students’ voice is facilitated within the Student Council and Green Schools Committee where the girls’ views and opinions help to inform in-school decisions and practices. There is a strong focus on community in Mount Anville and our pupils are encouraged to become active members in their community and they learn to understand how they can make a difference in the world. All of our school community participate in fundraising pursuits and work together to make a difference and we fundraise for local charities annually.
Wellbeing Week
“Wellbeing Week” is held every year in Mount Anville and it has become a highlight in our school calendar This is a mindful week which puts a special emphasis on developing the girls’ social and emotional skillset. This year during Wellbeing Week we had a specific daily theme. On “Mindful Monday” we focused on mindfulness, on “Thankful Tuesday” we worked on having an attitude of gratitude, “Wellness Wednesday” shone a light on emotions, on “Triumphant Thursday” the girls celebrated their personal achievements and learnt about using their growth mindset and on “Make A Difference Friday” the pupils explored how they could make a difference in the world. Every class completed activities to compliment the daily theme and the 6th class girls lead us in a daily mindful announcement, teaching us new breathing exercises. We can now use the rainbow, heart, infinity, box and flower breathing techniques to help us when we feel overwhelmed or when we need to take a mindful minute. On yard we got our groove on and danced to some uplifting music at lunchtime. We had a colourful photoshoot, making a whole-school rainbow where all of our pupils dressed in a specific colour which represented their favourite emotion and our school community came together for a performance of the song “We Can Make A Difference”, linking to this year’s ethos theme of Social Awareness. To top off our Wellbeing Week we all put on our artistic hats and created a collaborative piece of artwork which showed how all of our hands come together to make one heart.
