Using The Local Mental Health Toolkit

A whole-school approach helps create positive learning environments, builds resilience, supports early intervention, and promotes good outcomes for pupils and staff.

The Local Mental Health Toolkit provides practical guidance to help schools embed a whole-school approach across eight key areas:

  • Leadership and management
  • Ethos and environment
  • Curriculum, teaching and learning
  • Student voice
  • Staff wellbeing and development
  • Identifying need and measuring impact
  • Working with parents and carers
  • Targeted support

Each of these areas are addressed in The Blueprint resource.

The toolkit includes resources, self-assessment tools, and action-planning guidance to help schools identify strengths, prioritise improvements, and evidence their work.

Schools can also access local support from Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) and the Emotional Health and Wellbeing Practitioner (EHWP) Team, alongside a range of partner organisations supporting mental health and emotional wellbeing across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

A successful whole-school approach requires commitment from leaders, staff, pupils, families, and partners, ensuring mental health and wellbeing are embedded throughout the school community.

For more information about Mental Health Support Teams in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough go to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental Health Support Team

For more information go to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Emotional Health and Wellbeing Practitioner team: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Emotional Health and Wellbeing Practitioner Team

To gain the most from this approach the whole educational setting needs to be fully engaged with the process.

How is your setting providing visible senior leadership for emotional health and mental wellbeing?

Ofsted Inspection Framework Links to pupil health & wellbeing
Quality of leadership in, and management of the school. Schools have to demonstrate how effectively management and leadership enables all pupils to overcome specific barriers to learning and the extent to which leaders and managers create a positive ethos in the school. The framework also specifies that schools should demonstrate capacity for further improvement, e.g. by working in partnership with other schools, early years’ providers, external agencies and the community; as well as by engaging with parents
Ofsted reported a close correlation between the grade that schools were awarded for overall effectiveness in their last inspection and their grade for PSHE.
The quality and nature of relationships, spanning pupil to pupil and pupil to teacher, are key to promoting a sense of belonging and pupils’ liking of school, which influences pupil wellbeing and readiness to learn.

NGA Pupil wellbeing guidance and toolkit:

The NGA provides guidance and resources to help governing boards support pupil mental health. The guidance outlines:

  • governing boards’ statutory responsibilities for wellbeing
  • the eight principles of a whole school approach o how governing boards can influence and support a whole school approach
  • questions to ask to review and monitor implementation and impact

Resources & examples to support you putting this into practice:

How does the school/college’s culture promote respect and value diversity?

Ofsted Inspection Framework Links to pupil health & wellbeing
Behaviour and safety of pupils at school. Pupils sense of belonging to school is a key determinant of their wellbeing and is higher in schools where children feel safe and have lower levels of bullying. These are also more likely to be high achievers.

Resources & examples to support you putting this into practice:

What focus is given within the curriculum to social learning and promoting personal resilience, and how is learning assessed?

Ofsted Inspection Framework Links to pupil health & wellbeing
Quality of teaching Systematic structured teaching of social and emotional life skills and values throughout school life has the potential to increase emotional wellbeing and academic achievement

Resources & examples to support you putting this into practice:

How does your setting ensure all students have the opportunity to express their views and influence decisions?

Ofsted Inspection Framework
Ofsted inspectors must have regard to the views of pupils. When assessing the level of behaviour and safety in schools, inspections should look at a small sample of case studies in order to evaluate the experience of particular individuals and groups, including disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, looked after children and those with mental health needs.

Resources & examples to support you putting this into practice:

How are staff supported in relation to their own health and wellbeing and able to support student wellbeing?

Ofsted Inspection Framework Links to pupil health & wellbeing
Management & Leadership When assessing management and leadership, inspectors must consider the school’s use of performance management and the effectiveness of strategies for improving teaching. This should include the extent to which professional development is based on the identified needs of staff and the induction needs of newly qualified teachers and teachers at an early stage of their career.

Resources & examples to support you putting this into practice:

How does your setting assess the needs of students and the impact of interventions to improve wellbeing?

Ofsted Inspection Framework Links to pupil health & wellbeing
Management & Leadership When inspecting the quality of leadership and management of, the school, Ofsted inspectors should consider the effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation and the extent to which this information is shared with governors. They should also consider how well the school meets the needs of all vulnerable groups of pupils.
Quality of Teaching Assessing and responding to the emotional health and wellbeing needs of children and learners, and taking steps to mitigate the impact this has on their capacity to learn could provide supportive evidence in relation to all key judgement areas: the achievement of pupils at the school, the quality of teaching in the school, the behaviour and safety of pupils at the school and the quality of leadership and management of, the school.

Resources & examples to support you putting this into practice:

How does your setting work in partnership with parents and carers to promote emotional health and wellbeing?

Ofsted Inspection Framework
The Ofsted inspection criteria expects schools to engage parents in supporting pupils’ achievement, behaviour and safety and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Ofsted inspectors have a duty to have regard to the views of parents. Inspectors will also take account of the results of any surveys carried out or commissioned by the school.

Good practice includes:

  • Regularly seeking feedback from parents and carers on wellbeing provision.
  • Involving families in wellbeing initiatives, training, and school programmes.
  • Providing clear information about the school’s approach to emotional health and mental wellbeing.
  • Supporting parents and carers with resources and advice to promote wellbeing at home.
  • Maintaining appropriate communication with families about concerns and support arrangements.
  • Ensuring support is accessible to all families, including those who may face additional barriers to engagement.
  • Making parents and carers aware of the school’s wellbeing policies and procedures.

Schools should also signpost families to trusted sources of support, such as This May Help, which provides practical mental health advice for parents and carers.

How does your setting ensure timely and effective identification of pupils who would benefit from coordinated support and ensure an appropriate response takes place?

Ofsted Inspection Framework
Ofsted inspectors will be interested in how monitoring ensures that individual children or groups of children with identified needs are targeted, and appropriate interventions are secured so that children receive the support they need, including through effective partnerships with external agencies and other providers.

Resources & examples to support you putting this into practice: