National recognition for pupil mental health at Oxfordshire school.

Aureus School has received further national recognition for its work focusing on pupils' mental wealth following the Place2Be Wellbeing in Schools Awards ceremony in London on Monday.

Aureus School has received further national recognition for its work focusing on pupils' mental wealth following the Place2Be Wellbeing in Schools Awards ceremony in London on Monday.

Run by children’s mental health charity Place2Be, the Awards recognise the passion, determination and hard work that goes into the delivery of mental health and wellbeing support in the charity’s partner schools across the country. The award ceremony was held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge.

Aureus School, which opened in September 2017, was highly commended in the School Community category in recognition of its partnership with local Didcot community project The Art Room and comes after the gold status given to Aureus recently by the Carnegie Centre of Excellence Mental Health Award for School - an honour awarded to just six UK secondary schools.

Each morning before lessons Aureus pupils are offered half an hour of mindful strategies, art, reading or movement.

"To have been received highly commended for an award like this is a real endorsement of all we have tried to do here at Aureus,” said head teacher Hannah Wilson.

“From the moment we opened, our approach has been to offer a nurturing vision and a holistic education to nurture the hearts and the minds of our students.

"Wellbeing is at the centre of all we do here. We strive to equip our students with an emotional toolkit to help them overcome challenges in life by preventing consequences, rather than learning how to have to deal with them.

"We have special sensory rooms and safe spaces in the school like our nurture room, and we have recruited a Student Welfare Manager, a Nurture Manager and a Thrive Practitioner which allows us to deal with children individually.

"Our goal is for Aureus students to develop into well-rounded, emotionally literate citizens of the future. It has been that way since the start, so to have been noticed and recognised in this way is a real thumbs-up for the work we have done so far, and will continue to do in future."

Place2Be Chief Executive Catherine Roche added: “All too often we are surrounded by stories of children’s mental health in crisis. Sadly, we hear less about the brilliant efforts made every day to support children and young people in UK schools.

"To redress this, Place2Be’s Wellbeing in Schools Awards recognise and showcase the remarkable work and commitment to promote mental health across our partner schools in the UK.”