About The Hive

GLA Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy

The Hive is BCPA’s Pastoral and Behaviour Support unit. The reason for this is that the bee symbolises focus, dedication, hard work, teamwork and generosity, which encompasses all of our school values – Responsibility, Reach, Resilience and Respect. At its simplest, pastoral care is ensuring the physical and emotional welfare of pupils. It is the essential foundation upon which learning can take place and it is our primary focus at BCPA. If children are safe and happy, they learn.

The Hive provides bespoke interventions for emotional wellbeing, friendship, concentration and behaviour as well as supporting staff with strategies to support pupils’ well-being within the classroom. It also offers a needs-led support model, in which any child can access the Hive if they feel they need some extra support, or just to talk things through.

Parental support is extremely important to us at BCPA, and any parent is welcome to talk to Miss Kelly, our Family Engagement Officer, about any pastoral or behaviour concerns they have about their child/ren. The admin team can pass on any messages or requests for support. Please contact admin@bishopscleeve.gloucs.sch.uk or 01242 683714.

Interventions

All GLA Schools use carefully chosen interventions to support pupils’ positive social, emotional and mental health development. Within BCPA we see pupils with a wide range of needs ranging from bereavement to social issues. Here in the Pastoral Room, we understand the vast impact these additional needs can have on not only academics but life too. To support this we have developed expertise in a range of interventions to help.

The interventions offered have been tried and tested and are proven to show a positive impact for the children we support. Interventions have a number of benefits:

To embed the core values of each school and the GLA in pupils for everyday school life.
To support pupils in how to remove their barriers to learning to enable them to reach their full potential.
To support the welfare of pupils and their families within the whole school community.
To promote life-long learning and individual growth.

These are the types of interventions we offer:

Research & evidence-based interventions. A vast majority of interventions used within pastoral support are evidenced through extensive research to show a positive impact for children. Each intervention used may stipulate a set order, time, frequency or structure to the session to maximise this positive impact. Some examples of researched and evidence-based interventions used within the GLA include:
- Time to Talk
- TalkAbout
- All About Me
- Banish your Self Esteem Thief
- My Hidden Chimp
- The Transporters
- Starving the Anxiety Gremlin
- Hamish and Milo

Nurture-based interventions – Nurture interventions are short-term, focused interventions for children with particular social, emotional and behavioural difficulties that create a barrier to learning within a mainstream class. There is great emphasis on emotional literacy, language development and communication. Pupils are immersed in an accepting and warm environment that helps replace missing/distorted early nurturing experiences and helps pupils develop positive relationships with both teachers and peers. (www.nurtureuk.org).

Each school operates an open-door policy which adds an element of a safe place in which all pupils can speak to an adult if needed. The open-door strategy is implemented during breaktime and lunchtime for all pupils to access.

Therapeutic interventions - A Therapeutic Intervention is an intervention to improve the well-being of someone who is in need of help but refuses it or is otherwise unable to initiate or accept help. Supporting traumatised children (ACES) often requires a therapeutic approach, which is usually required by social care. Some therapeutic interventions used within the GLA include:
- Draw and Talk
- Lego Therapy
- Sand Play
- Circle Time
- CBT