Safeguarding & Wellbeing

All teachers at KGV are teachers of wellbeing. We remain committed to working with families and our wider community to ensure we are all aware of the issues facing our students and providing parents, teachers and students with the information and skills needed for all students to be the best they can be. We are constantly striving to improve our student support and guidance provision by listening to what students need and collecting data to identify priorities.

To further support all student’s wellbeing, we have a strong pastoral system which includes many staff members with daily duties and responsibilities, including:

• the Tutor (a dedicated tutor for each student who knows them well and advocates for them)
• Head of Year (HOY)
• Senior Head of Year (SHOY)
• Vice Principal (VP) in charge of each of the sub-schools
• Response To Intervention (RTI) team
• Counselling team (Emotional Literacy Support Advisors (ELSA’s), Counsellors and Social Workers)
• Child Protection Officers

As part of our wider focus on wellbeing, our students are supported in Years 7-9 through PHE (Physical and Health Education) classes and in Years 10 -13 through PSHE (Personal, Social, Economic and Health Education). Through these subjects, pupils develop valuable knowledge, skills and attributes they need to keep themselves healthy and safe and prepare for life and work in modern global society such as such as resilience, self-esteem, risk-management, team working and critical thinking in the context of learning grouped into three core themes: health and wellbeing, relationships and living in the wider world. Evidence shows that well-delivered PHE and PSHE programmes have an impact on both academic and non-academic outcomes for pupils. These curricula form the heart of our explicit Wellbeing Education at KGV.

Our WeTalkHub (formerly Wellbeing Centre) continues to be a safe space where students can go if they just want a place to be calm, and escape from the stress of school. Our two Student Counsellors and two Social Workers provide one-to-one support for students who needed extra help with a variety of issues they faced through the school year. They work alongside our team of four ELSAs (Emotional Literacy Support Advisors) to look after the wellbeing of students at KGV. Apart from approaching their tutors, we encouraged students to use our counselling services as an additional, confidential support to help them address difficulties that affect their social, emotional or intellectual wellbeing. In addition, our Student Wellbeing Ambassadors also support students through activities that helped foster a culture of peer support and wellbeing at KGV.

Wellbeing at KGV also includes:

• School Healthcare Professionals Available for students on site every day
• AWE wellbeing survey. Every student in ESF takes the AWE survey every year as a tool for reflecting upon and improving their own wellbeing, and to help the school see if we are on track. We also do additional KGV ‘screeners’ to help identify students who may need support and to give student opportunities to request support.
• A varied curriculum which promotes wellbeing when opportunities they present themselves.  Whole-School Events through the year such as  Kindness Week, Pride Week , Odd Socks for Odd Days, and Mental Health Awareness Week to highlight and focus the community on different aspects of wellbeing
• Parent talks: A programme of parent talks running every year, throughout the year.
• Our school values of Honesty Courage and Empathy

For further information on Wellbeing at KGV, please see our KGV Wellbeing website here.