Staff and pupils at Kingswear Primary School are celebrating after receiving two awards at the end of the Autumn Term.

For 18 months they have been working towards the Wellbeing Award in Schools and the Rights Respecting Schools Silver Award (Unicef).

The Wellbeing Award in Schools is a framework to ensure that mental health and wellbeing sit at the heart of school life.  It demonstrates Kingswear’s commitment to ensuring that emotional wellbeing of pupils, staff and the wider community is integral to the ethos of the school.  As a small school, Kingswear is proud of its family feel; something which its parents and children clearly value too. Parent surveys carried out as part of the Award assessment revealed that 100% of parents would recommend the school to others. One parent commented: “In the short time my child has been at Kingswear he is excelling and so happy; he comes home and chatters non-stop about his day and learning.”

The assessor was impressed by the strong positive relationships between pupils, staff and parents.  The report commented that: “The litmus test of an emotionally happy school (mutually respectful relationships between adults) was abundantly evident.”

Alongside this award, Kingswear has been demonstrating its commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) by ensuring every child has their rights respected and met.  The focus on ensuring every child receives the best education and develops their talents and abilities to the full was very evident to the award assessor who was impressed with the school’s use of the UNCRC as a key driver for school improvement.  The children told her that the best thing about being a rights respecting school was that “the teachers give you a right to a voice so we can suggest ideas.”

After a challenging two years in education, Head of School, Sarah Lord, recognises that children’s emotional safety and sense of control have been damaged by the pandemic, making awards such as these integral to educational recovery: “We are so proud of our children who have shown great resilience and positivity; supported by staff, parents and carers, they led the way to these awards and we are thrilled that everyone’s hard work has been recognised. As one of the children said, ‘we are a small caring school’; this was true before the award, but it’s very nice to have it validated!”