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Green-fingered pupils at Littlecoates Primary Academy received a helping hand to create a new mini-orchard. Pupils dug deep to plant fruit trees and floral seeds kindly donated by Grimsby Garden Centre. Littlecoates’ Principal Neville Wilkinson thanked the centre, its owners the NHS mental health services provider NAViGO, and governor Kristina Parker, who works for NAViGO and helped organise the event.

“We really appreciate the efforts that have been made to create a special outdoor place for our children,” he said. “They were really excited about the plans and helping the gardeners. It is wonderful to see them outside enjoying the activity and feels like another step towards normality.”

Year 4’s Tilly had enjoyed her time outdoors. “I planted a fruit tree,” she said. “We had to dig a hole, put it in, move the soil back and then stand on the soil and stamp it down. That was my favourite part. “I also planted a sunflower seed. I am looking forward to it growing really high with a bright yellow flower on it. “We did some weeding and digging which I enjoyed because there were lots of worms. We also got messy!”

The community-focussed garden centre knows more than most about the positive impact of horticulture on both mental and physical health. Its profits go back into its upkeep and into improving mental health services across North East Lincolnshire. The centre encourages individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds and people with mental health difficulties to get back into work by offering skills, training and employment opportunities. NAViGO head of commercial services Jo Keen said: “We think young people should have the opportunity to experience nature and have the chance to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers. “We know how beneficial gardening can be for both physical and mental wellbeing – it can be very calming, inclusive, reduce stress and it’s also great to have an understanding of where food comes from. “And as pupils return to the classroom following months of home schooling, we are determined to support young people in getting outside and having some muddy good fun. “We love being part of the local community, we consider ourselves much more than just a garden centre and we hope this is the start of a season’s long friendship.”

World Book Day might have had to be a little different this year but lockdown didn’t stop Wellspring schools celebrating in style. Whether at school or at home, there was no shortage of fantastically creative and engaging efforts to mark World Book Day.

Across lots of our schools, pupils got dressed up as their favourite characters from much loved books and shared pictures online of their amazing efforts.

At Victoria Academy, pupils in school were visited by a life size tiger in reference to The Tiger Who Came To Tea, whilst over at Greenacre, staff were replaced by Snow White and her seven dwarves – and there was a rather tasty-looking poison apple pie to enjoy.

Pupils in school at Bramley Park marked the day by becoming ‘Super Reading Heroes,’ and made masks, capes and talked about all the reading super powers they could have. They also held a ‘Book in a Box’ challenge, with pupils creating some stunning representations of their favourite books in a box at home and sending in pictures. Some brilliant examples included Alice in Wonderland, Jurassic Park and The Christmasauraus.

At Phoenix Park, there was a visit from Iron Man, whilst Ebor Gardens enjoyed an Alice in Wonderland theme with some fabulous outfits and a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Oakwell Rise pupils were taught by The Boy Who Lived – Harry Potter!

Springwell Leeds held a potato head competition where pupils had to make their favourite characters, enjoyed marshmallows and story time round a fire pit and more. Finally, Springwell LC put together a truly fantastic video. Have a look and see how many of your favourite books you can spot… https://twitter.com/i/status/1367532515184021508

Well done to everyone for making World Book Day as special and exciting as ever across the Wellspring community.

Springwell Spalding have won a prestigious award from the Fair Education Alliance for their “Intrapeneurship” project of introducing an EYFS room at an Alternative Provision school.

The problem
There are increasing numbers of very young children being excluded from mainstream schools. Permanent exclusions of children under 7 have almost doubled since 2010. In 2019-20, there were 156 children aged 0-3 in AP settings, and 149 children aged 4.

As colleagues in AP settings will know, there are increasing numbers of children who are in school years 2-4, but are working significantly below this, sometimes working towards EYFS level objectives.

Primary AP settings tend to be small, so generally have to place children in a mixed age primary class. While a child in year 2 needs to have at least some time sitting at a desk, completing written mathematics work, a child at 22 months needs to be exploring capacity in the water tray, or developing a sense of shape through playing with blocks. No matter how wonderful our primary AP teachers are, it is incredibly difficult to create a classroom that caters for both these children.

We have therefore developed a special EYFS room in Springwell Spalding, which is set up like a nursery, and which caters for children who are still working in the EYFS, no matter how old they are. Our approach in this provision is based in the work of Montessori, Froebel, and Regio Emilia – a child centred, play based curriculum, with a particular focus on communication, early literacy, and supporting students’ SEMH needs.

The FEA Award
The Intrapreneurship Award is a collective approach of internal innovation, leveraging the expertise and connections of the Fair Education Alliance membership to offer up to 5 Winners a year-long programme of support and £15k to develop, test and embed a new programme, partnership, product or service to make education fair. Award Winners also receive a place on the Intrapreneurship Incubator, an intensive programme of technical and leadership training, supportive mentoring and expert advice to help them develop, pilot and embed the idea within the organisation.

Louise Bostock is our Lead EYFS practitioner, and she has been working with the FEA on developing the plan for our EYFS room, as well as considering how we will measure the impact, and (if it proves successful) how we can grow the provision beyond Springwell Spalding, as well as influence practice nationally. Louise spoke recently at the FEA summit – a national virtual conference for FEA members and interested organisations – raising the profile of Springwell Spalding, Wellspring as a trust, and our fantastic Early Years project.

The impact so far
We are in the early days of our project, but the initial signs are amazing. We have four students in our EYFS provision now. One of those was with us before the
EYFS room opened, so we can directly compare his behaviour and progress in a mixed age primary AP class, to the EYFS provision. The impact on him has been nothing short of phenomenal. This child made very little progress in his speech, phonics, or letter and number recognition while in the primary class. Since moving into the EYFS room, he has started making progress in all three. He used to go into crisis mode regularly, often biting staff and requiring restrictive physical interventions on average once a week in order to keep him and other students safe. Since he moved into the specialist provision, he has not bitten once, has displayed very little crisis behaviour, and has only required physical support twice since September. We are incredibly proud of him, and the staff in the Springwell Spalding EYFS room that have made it all possible.

The #30DaysofWellbeing idea came about to give people simple hints, tips and reminders of what we can all do to support ourselves and others with our wellbeing.
With so much content being shared over social media, people can often get overwhelmed and with January seeing so many people kick-starting new habits and resolutions, the idea was to simplify things within 140 characters or less.

The tips, hints and ideas focused on little wins and considerations, whether that being a reminder to take a breather, have a drink of water or to limit the amount of social media use as well as supporting others around us. It shared how we can support other people and that, by taking the time to call or text a friend or colleague and check in with them, we can have a massive impact on both theirs and our wellbeing.

British Values are really important to us at The Forest School, we embed the teaching of this in all that we do. We want our children to be proud of who they are and of what they do but we also want them to remember that not everyone can be home for Christmas and that our Armed Forces play a really important role in keeping
everyone safe.

We want our children to grow into kind and thoughtful adults and we want them to know that Christmas is a time to think of others as well as of ourselves. To support this learning, during the Autumn Term The Forest School children have continued a tradition of writing Christmas letters to the Yorkshire Battalion, who are this year in Afghanistan.

This has become an important event in school that the children (and adults!) now look forward to and thoroughly enjoy writing.

The children’s letters have included them introducing themselves and discussing how they celebrate Christmas, asking questions to the soldiers and sending them a Christmas wish. Alongside the letters, the children brought donations for shoe boxes or filled their own shoe box. This year we sent 27 boxes to Afghanistan which were gratefully received by all the soldiers.

In return our wonderful armed forces (The Yorkshire Battalion) have taken the time to write to the pupils which encourages our children’s engagement in literacy activities. The soldiers sent lovely pictures of them opening their presents and this allowed our children to see the joy of giving and reinforces exactly what we are trying to help our amazing young people understand.

Example Army Letter

Alison Gordon – Springwell Lincoln
Q Why be a Wellbeing Champion?
I believe that the wellbeing of staff should be paramount in every work setting. I have always had an open-door policy where staff could drop-in and chat so being Wellbeing Champion seemed the obvious step for me. I enjoy promoting staff wellbeing and engaging staff in different activities.

Q How do you make a difference to staff wellbeing?
I make a difference because I believe in positive mental health within the workplace and I would like to think I have a good relationship with the staff and I would like to offer the similar support and guidance to the staff, that we as a school offer the pupils.

Q What’s your favourite way of keeping yourself well? 
Not living life on auto pilot, taking note of the little things, that would usually go unnoticed. I have just completed a mindfulness course that I will be qualified to teach in the New Year and this will help me fulfil my role as Wellbeing Champion.

Q Describe yourself in three words…
Empathetic, Approachable, Determined

Katie Grainger – Elements Primary School
Q Why be a Wellbeing Champion?
I enjoy that I can give back to my work colleagues and support them when needed, especially with the year 2020 has been.

Q How do you make a difference to staff wellbeing?
I hope in my own way that I cheer staff up when they need it, support them where I can and they all know my door is always open if they want a cuppa and a chat

Q What’s your favourite way of keeping yourself well?
Taking a little time for me, I enjoy walking our dog to clear my head and I have started reading more.

Q Describe yourself in three words…
Fun, kind and caring.

Jordan Vaughan – Springwell Learning Community
Q Why be a Wellbeing Champion?
Wellbeing is more important now than ever before. Together, we can make a positive difference to enhance wellbeing across the trust. I think being a wellbeing champion allows myself to support colleagues to the best of my ability and promote the importance of self-care.

Q How do you make a difference to staff wellbeing?
I am always available to have a chat and a cuppa with my colleagues, to offer my support if they need to offload the pressures of the day. As a team, myself and Abby offer whole school wellbeing meetings and wellbeing activity days. We are looking forward to developing the wellbeing offer within our centre.

Q What’s your favourite way of keeping yourself well?
My favourite way of keeping well is to be outdoors, either walking in the hills, swimming in lakes or out for a ride on the push iron.

Q Describe yourself in three words…
Approachable, Dedicated, Trustworthy