Summary of Programme:
In 2024 the Mental Health and Relationships (MH&R) Programme reaches its sixth year. 87 primary schools have worked intensively on the programme, but now all Cambridgeshire and Peterborough primary schools have access to the resources and training materials. The Programme resources support children with essential skills such as building empathy, communication and resilience with healthy friendships and resolving conflicts with peers. The programme continues to promote the resources and support primary schools to implement them.
The aims are to ensure that all primaries have access to:
- High quality resources to teach all children (YR-Y6) about healthy friendships and anti-bullying – Reference the Antibullying Theme Set and Healthy Friendships Pack.
- Materials focusing on conflict resolution skills for all children – Reference the Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Pack
- Materials to support the training of peer mediators and implementation of a peer mediation service
- Resources for use with groups experiencing difficulties with friendships, including coercive and manipulative bullying behaviour – Reference the Promoting Healthy Friendships Pack.
- Training to build staff confidence to use the resources and build whole school approaches.
The programme is led by the Cambridgeshire PSHE Service, funded by Public Health.
Whilst we plan the next developments for our work on Mental Health and Relationships for 2024-25, schools are invited to review these case studies from schools who have implemented the MH&R resources:
- How Townley Primary has implemented the Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programme
- How Monkfield Park has implemented the Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programme
- How Coates Primary has implemented the Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programme
- How Robert Arkenstall Primary has implemented the Promoting Healthy Friendships Programme
Links to associated pages include:
Anti-Bullying – Healthy Schools
Relationships – Primary – Healthy Schools
Summary of Resources
Primary Anti-bullying Themeset:
Audience : Primary schools in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough who do not subscribe or hold a licence for the Cambs PSHE Service Primary Development Programme.
Contents: The resource contains Units of Works for use in PSHE lessons (YR-Y6) covering Antibullying themes, a model Anti-bullying Policy and support with responding to bullying in school.
Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Pack:
Audience: Primary schools in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Contents: The resource contains a series of four Units of Work (YR-Y6) focusing on building resilience and skills to resolve low level conflict. The Units of Work may be used following the delivery of PSHE lessons on broader healthy relationships and anti-bullying themes (See Anti-bullying Toolkit above). The Pack also contains an extensive programme for training Peer Mediators to support with low level conflict resolution in school and a manual for Programme leaders.
Promoting Healthy Friendships Pack:
Audience: Primary schools in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Contents: This resources may be used for small groups of KS2 children who are experiencing challenge in their friendships, particularly relating to indirect bullying behaviours such as exclusion, manipulation and coercion. The content may be adapted for use in whole class groups.
Staff Training and Information Resources:
Audience: Primary schools in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Contents: A growing collection of recorded training briefings and online modules to support use of the resources above and school approach to Mental Health and Relationships.
To access these resources please request the password :
Mental Health & Relationships – PSHE Service – Password Request
Online Training Modules
Audience: Staff groups and PSHE leaders in Cambs and Peterborough Primaries
Contents: Five narrated training modules (in MP4 format) for use in collective staff meetings or by individual leaders to support whole school development of ‘Challenging Stereotypes’, ‘Body Image’, ‘Healthy Friendships’, ‘Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation’ and ‘Online Relationships’. A Summary and guide to the modules and how to use them is also available. These themes support the aims and implementation of the Mental Health and Relationships Programme.
Access the resources here