The wellbeing of our children and staff at Fern House School is paramount and our ethos and ensures that everybody feels valued and heard.

The Wellbeing of our Children

We have a strong growth mindset ethos across the school that encourages independence and resilience, enabling children to use these skills in any given situation. Children are given the opportunity to reflect on their learning each week in learning journals and take ownership of their own progress.

Our nurturing culture is promoted through our Fern House ethos, where our children learn collaboratively and create relationships with children of all ages across the school.

Our children participate in mindfulness and yoga sessions as part of our PSHE curriculum and we ensure that their mental and physical wellbeing is valued by themselves and others. Our PSHE education helps pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage many of the critical opportunities, challenges and responsibilities they will face as they grow up and in adulthood.

We are able to provide every child with breakfast each morning when they arrive at school.

The Wellbeing of our Staff

The wellbeing of our staff is a high priority for Fern House and we have designed our way of working to encompass this ethos. Our staff retention is excellent due to the opportunities and importance we place on valuing their contribution. We have considered teacher workload, including assessment and marking and created much more effective practices to ensure workload is reduced and pupil progress is increased. We provide staff incentives as well as equipping our staff with the very best technology, e.g. all teachers use Macbooks so that they can provide the very best resources for teaching and learning. The voice of our staff is always heard and they contribute to the development of our curriculum and our school development plan.

We are committed to promoting a healthy work-life balance and believe that the very best education is delivered by teachers who are passionate, believe that they are valued and have the opportunity to be creative without being constrained by administrative tasks.

We have a wellbeing group made up of staff across the school that have analysed the ways in which we at Fern House are committed to wellbeing. This has ensured our teacher retention is extremely high as staff want to be part of Fern House. Please see below for details:

Teacher Workload

Following guidance from the DfE (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/reducing-workload-in-your-school) regarding the workload of teachers we assessed our practices and adapted the following:

• Assessment procedures - these have been refined and all paperwork reviewed to ensure that only necessary work is completed
• We have created a 'Feedback for Learning Policy' which has eradicated marking and instead focusses on conferencing with teachers as well as a larger emphasis on children becoming more independent in their progression
• School Reports have been redesigned and children now take ownership of this through learning journals.
• Data Management - we have designed our own assessment tracking online data system that is user friendly and designed to analyse data quickly and efficiently.

Professional Development and Training

• We provide all staff with regular professional development, listening to feedback and tailoring sessions to the needs of the staff.
• We have our own personalised NQT training programme which incorporates training from the school, the borough and the Trust.
• Due to the size of the school and being part of the Connect Education Trust we are able to offer significant professional development opportunities.

Access to Technology

• All staff have chromebooks and teachers have Macbooks to enable them to plan and deliver the very best teaching.
• We work with a central online drive so that resources and planning can be accessed from anywhere with ease and centrally stored.
• The school has minibuses which staff are able to train as drivers so that they are able to take their classes on school trips without relying on public transport.

Mental and Physical Health

• Our staff have access to a confidential employee support service
• We have termly wellness sessions for all staff

Incentives

• All staff have access to STAR days. Earning a STAR for each half-term of no absence. Once you have 6 Stars you earn a Star day which is a paid day of absence