Quality Standard

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HeadStart School Quality Standard

 

Delivery of the HeadStart school standards to all primary, secondary and special schools in Middlesbrough is part of the Middlesbrough CAMHS Transformation Plan. The school standard enables schools to improve the emotional health and resilience of pupils aged 5-16. We also deliver a post 16 package working with all Middlesbrough colleges.

The HeadStart school standards have been developed in conjunction with senior school leaders to support schools in facilitating effective and sustainable change in the delivery of support for the emotional well-being and mental health of children and young people. The aim of this approach is to implement an early help and prevention model which will ultimately reduce the onset of common mental health problems by building the resilience of pupils to be able to cope better in difficult circumstances.

The model is underpinned by evidence based theory using the resilience framework:
https://www.boingboing.org.uk/interactive-resilience-framework/

The implementation of the model is tailored to meet the priorities of school wherever possible.
The HeadStart approach supports pupils on 3 levels –

  • Universal – a whole school approach
  • Universal plus – additional support for those pupils exposed to risks e.g. poor economic circumstances, parental mental health issues, presence of familial substance/alcohol misuse.
  • Targeted – for those pupils subject to risk and exhibiting symptoms: attendance, behaviour and attainment

 

Features of the school offer include:

  • A capacity building approach to improve resilience and capability of pupils to have good emotional health
  • Developing the capacity of schools to support pupil emotional health through workforce development, financial investment and evidence based quality standards.

 

Overarching outcomes are:

  • Increased emotional resilience in young people
  • A school workforce with increased awareness of and better able to identify and respond to the needs of children through an overall systems change leading to sustained improvements in early prevention, targeted and specialist services
  • Appropriate, accessible, innovative, joined up services reducing the need for high level interventions
  • Improved attainment, attendance and behaviour

 

The HeadStart school standard has been developed to evidence a structured and effective support system for pupils. It is a requirement for schools to work towards achieving the standard to receive the full HeadStart offer. It has been developed in partnership with schools and provides an incremental framework to achieve a whole school approach to emotional health.

This is linked to the academic resilience framework and toolkit developed by Young Minds and University of Brighton to support and facilitate a whole school approach to emotional well-being:
https://youngminds.org.uk/youngminds-professionals/our-projects/academic-resilience/

 

Subject to achieving the school quality standard and developing a sustainability plan, schools access a non-recurrent grant to facilitate an improved approach supporting emotional health. The amount of grant is determined by numbers on roll and number of pupils eligible for free school meals. The Headstart school quality standard goes from bronze to gold enabling schools to show how they are supporting the emotional health of children and young people.