Cornwall Schools’ Wellbeing Hub Newsletter 13th June 2025
Friday 13th June 2025
Welcome to the Wellbeing Newsletter
Welcome to the wellbeing update
This week the Beano announced the results of their funniest class of the year competition:
“The results are in, the giggles have been counted, and the crown has been awarded! Stratus Class (Year 5) from Riverley Primary School in Leyton, London, has been officially named Britain’s Funniest Class of 2025! Their teacher, the brilliant Ms Maisha Mahfuza, also walks away with the title of Britain’s Funniest Teacher.
With a standout joke that won 36% of the public vote, Stratus Class tickled the nation’s funny bones”:
“What do you call the fanciest punctuation?
An a-posh-trophe!”
(Which I thought was brilliant!)
It’s good to see that the competition is well supported every year by schools and reassuring that these schools find time to take part. I imagine it is a fun and engaging activity for pupils and staff alike.
I thought of the Beano competition whilst reading the latest report from the ImpactEd group.
The point that young people disengage – key findings from landmark 100,000+ study on engagement in England’s schools. It found that pupils' enjoyment of school plummets from a rating of 6.0/10 to just 3.8/10 when they transition through Year 7 – and it never fully recovers.
BUT the research also showed that some schools are bucking these national trends. Find out more:
Download the full research report
Free webinar: Register for our research deep-dive - June 11th 1pm
Hear Professor John Jerrim walk through the key report findings, plus real school experiences of utilising engagement data to transform outcomes.
Participate in the growing national study on engagement in England’s schools and receive benchmarked, actionable insights for your school.
Child Poverty in Cornwall – LAST CHANCE to complete survey. Being alongside children and families every day your insight is crucial. Please take part- link below.
The Director of Public Health is focusing on child poverty in their Annual Report this year and they are keen to shine the spotlight on the voices / experiences of children and young people as well gathering the views of professionals working with children and families on how poverty affects children and the impact that managing the symptoms of poverty has on their organisation.
There are two excellent opportunities to contribute:
- Help PH explore and capture children's understanding of health and happiness (deadline 27th June)
Don’t forget you can now access this and previous newsletters on the website
Wellbeing Training with Headstart Kernow
Protective Behaviours 2 Day Foundation Training
Fridays 4th / 11th July 09.30 – 16.00
St Erme Community Centre, nr Truro
Felt safety is key to connection / belonging / learning and achievement
PBs helps C&YP understand felt safety and gives them strategies recognise when they are feeling ‘safe’ / ‘unsafe’ and what to do if feeling unsafe.
Find out more / book (free)
New Dates for Grandma on the Moon next term
Have you joined the Headstart Kernow Creative Education membership yet?
Sign up here: www.headstartkernow.org.uk/creative-education/
Download our updated Creative Education membership information fliers with access links for:
External organisations - training coming up.
Schools in Mind
How can schools and colleges help young people form healthy relationships in a digital world?
We know that it can be challenging to know how to support young people to form and maintain healthy relationships, particularly in the context of the increasing popularity of digital spaces.
Join us on 18 June (16.30 – 18.00) for an interactive webinar, which will help education staff and other professionals who work with children and young people to support the development of healthy peer relationships.
The session will also help you identify signs that a student is being negatively affected by their peer relationships, as well as support you to understand how to look after both your wellbeing and that of your colleagues when navigating these difficult situations and conversations.
More information / Booking (cost involved)
On-demand from ThriveUK
How to create a sense of belonging in schools (Thrive UK)
In this session, we explore how to create a genuine sense of belonging in schools – a vital foundation for mental wellbeing, academic success, and healthy brain development. We expand on previous conversations about the importance of belonging, sharing fresh strategies underpinned by the latest neuroscience and Thrive’s relational approach.
Dr Lisa Cherry (TICS) Circles and Threads; Trauma Informed Record Keeping
1st July 2025 (online). Cost involved.
For foster carers, social workers and those in education responsible for writing records.
It is an insightful, interactive, connection space. Using a trauma informed lens, we'll explore how records have the capacity to heal the reader long after their time in care.
Another course from Lisa Cherry - Cultivating Belonging: A Model for Practice 2025 (Cost involved)
Brand new for 2025 - A conceptual model to weave a web of belonging in practice!
Cultivating belonging into our practice can sometimes feel like a tick box exercise; something that we know we should do but without any knowledge of a cohesive way of doing it.
Drawing from Dr Lisa Cherry's research on belonging and written about in her book Weaving A Web of Belonging, this full day session will guide you through the why, the when and the how of incorporating a conceptual model into your practice.
You will leave the day with a clear plan of how to apply her FACES, SPACES, PLACES model into your practice, slides from the day, a toolkit to audit and develop practice, alongside various downloadable items to support your Cultivating Belonging into Practice Plan. This event is suitable for anyone wanting to develop a practice of belonging into their setting, service or system and to deepen understanding of the impact of unbelonging for so many who are then left feeling as though they are invisible and that they don't matter.
Meet colleagues from around the country and draw on collaborative minds across sectors and let's create!
When? - 3rd September 2025 9.30 - 3.45
Where? - Online – Zoom
Your Host: Dr Lisa Cherry
News / Resources / Updates
Exams and Transition support
Find advice and information for YP from YP on both exams season (including SATS) and transition via the Start Now website.
Head to our website to order Transition Mission booklets (free)
Young Minds Update - getting young people through exam season
Stress bucket activity – help young people identify what exactly is causing them stress and the things they can do to reduce it.
Mindfulness activities – help young people calm their heightened emotions and cope with anxiety.
For more tips and advice on managing exam time, check out our guides for parents/carers and professionals.
This year Refugee Week 16 to 22 June 2025.
The theme: Community as a Superpower.
Refugee Week is the world's largest arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of people seeking sanctuary.
Through a programme of arts & culture, sports and educational activities alongside exciting media and creative campaigns, Refugee Week brings people from different backgrounds to connect beyond labels, as well as foster a deeper understanding of why people are displaced, and the challenges people face when seeking sanctuary.
More information and lots of free resources
The National Literacy Trust has some excellent resource for EYFS and Schools too
Mentally Healthy Schools - Pride Month toolkit 2025
Two toolkits - one for primary schools, one for secondary schools & FE settings - full of resources to celebrate and support those who identify as LGBTQIA+ during Pride Month and beyond.
News from Pooky Knightsmith
SLIDES: Inclusive Classrooms - Maslow's Toolbox
This is a big one. I’m sharing the slides from my “Maslow’s Toolbox” session—a resource-rich, idea-packed guide for building classrooms where students feel safe, seen, and ready to learn.
Yes, there are a lot of slides—but don’t let that put you off! It’s designed as a toolbox, not a to-do list. You’re not meant to use it all at once. Think of it as something to dip in and out of—pick a few ideas that feel doable, and see what shifts.
What’s inside?
- Practical strategies inspired by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Ways to meet students’ needs for safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation
- Ideas like 3Rs on arrival, quiet praise, ‘I can’ cycles, tiny steps, comfort audits and more
- Gentle prompts to reflect on what your students need—and what you might already be doing brilliantly
This session is all about building up, not burning out. Small, thoughtful changes can make a world of difference—and you might find you’re already doing more than you realise.
Powerpoint presentation attached
As ever Pooky is happy to share and for people to use / adapt resources as you see fit – with a credit.
Wellbeing Book of the Week - for Refugee Week
A Home for a Ukrainian by Poppy Gibson
This is the story of a little boy's journey with his mother from Ukraine to England due to the Russian invasion, 2022.
This book, illustrated by artist Terry Culkin, is a great tool to use to stimulate discussion and explore empathy with children as they consider how the little boy might have felt as he escaped the war and left his home behind to come to England and live in a stranger's house.
The pages are also translated into Ukrainian, by Ukrainian refugee Yuliia Ruban, enabling this book to be shared with other Ukrainian children who may still be learning the English language.
A lovely book to share with children and young people to help understand the needs of refugee C&YP and also as way of welcoming children into class. The activities are well thought out and useful and the story in English / Ukrainian insightful and inclusive. Recommended.
Free / low-cost wellbeing resources for schools
Excellent free / low cost Social and Emotional Learning resources can be found on some of our very favourite websites:
Whole Hearted School Counseling – brilliant blogs, fab freebies and low cost resources that worth purchasing
Anita who ‘is’ WHSC has been creating some fabulous resources recently.
A recent series of blogs with additional resources have covered some really important areas for supporting young people in engaging and fun ways.
Anita has also been posting some excellent brief wellbeing snapshots for young people and parents via Instagram.
ELSA Support
Again, lots to love with a terrific bank of free downloads and low-cost resources.
Latest freebie is the ‘Bravery Boot’.
Be Happy Resources
Resources to buy and subscriptions to access everything on site but always a free resource or two each week.
This week’s free download is: a Little Book of Mindfulness
Any other sites you are aware of and would recommend?
Digital Resilience Tools and Resources
As part of our overall website refresh, we have updated / improved the digital resilience tools / resources and added some new ones. There are tools for professional, parents and carers and young people themselves. Recent additions include:
- SEND Digital Resilience Guidance
- Was that, OK? tool for young people.
- Podcast Series for young people
Explore these and all the digital resilience resources
VapeANON
VapeANON.com lets young people share information about shops selling vapes to children - and it’s entirely anonymous.
Created by Cornwall Council Trading Standards in response to concerns raised by young people at our Children’s Rights Annual Conversation, VapeANON enables young people to pass on information anonymously to Cornwall’s Trading Standards team about shops that are breaking the law by selling vapes to under 18s.
One of the young people who took part in the Annual Conversation said:
“Whilst working with other young people to create an action plan to address the issue of young people vaping at the Annual Conversation we all discovered that most of us knew at least one person who had bought a vape illegally. We all felt like something had to be done to prevent more young people accessing vapes so I’m very proud that Trading Standards listened to the concerns of the young people and are working to combat this issue."
Have you visited our new www.headstartkernow.org.uk website yet?
We are delighted to let you know that our refreshed and redesigned website went live recently. We made it simpler to find what you need as professionals supporting children and families need as well adding a new, more prominent area for parents and carers.