Family Support
At Sea Mills Primary School, we have a dedicated team who can support you as a family.
Our family and pastoral support worker is: Abi Griffiths
Abi has been part of the Sea Mills community for nearly 10 years, working closely with children across the school in her role as an LSA. She is a qualified ELSA and is passionate about supporting children’s wellbeing. Over the years, Abi has built strong, trusting relationships with our pupils and families. She knows our children well and brings a calm, caring approach to her pastoral work.
She runs and coordinates:
- Daily thrive and ELSA sessions with pupils (1:1 and in groups)
- Contacts families who require support (welfare calls)
- Conducts supportive home visits
- Signposts and refers children and families for support e.g. mental health, domestic violence, food bank etc
To get in touch to access support via:
Family Support email: Abigail.griffiths@seamillsprimary.co.uk
Food Bank Vouchers: If require a food bank voucher please email Abi who will be able to support you.
Welfare Calls: During any school closure you may receive a phone call from our family support worker. We have arranged this to ensure that we are checking in on you as a family and offering/signposting you to any help or advice that you may need. We care about you.
Other support you can access is:
- School Nurse Service for parents and children: 0300 1245 816
- First Response: 0117 9036444 (urgent child protection concerns)
- Families in Focus: 0117 3521499 (non-urgent concerns)
Sadly, more and more school children are struggling to cope with their mental health. Through our Thrive approach of using the latest research into brain development we know that the brain has incredible plasticity. This means that new pathways can be developed in a child’s brain! Our skill as Thrive practitioners is to help the child to develop new pathways where they are needed most by using skilled assessment around six Thrive Developmental Strands.
Our Thrive practitioners have undergone rigorous training to ensure they are fully equipped to work with the wider staff team to deliver breathtakingly simple and effective strategies and activities which support the development of each unique child. These tried and tested strategies and activities are individualised for children and their families to provide unique experiences, which done repeatedly with a familiar adult do many things including:
- developing a child’s strong sense of self-worth
- supporting a child’s growing capacity to make sense of the world
- supporting the development of neuronal pathways in the brain that positively contribute to healthy stress management systems
- enabling a child to be able to think whilst having strong feelings
- building a child’s ability to be able to make choices about their behaviour
- building a child’s capacity to self-soothe and understand their emotions
Emotional Literacy Support Assistant = ELSA
Our ELSA is a specialist teaching assistant with a wealth of experience of working with children. Our ELSA is trained and supervised by the Education Psychologist. She is warm and caring and wants every child to feel happy in school and reach their full potential educationally. Her aim is to remove barriers to learning and to have happy children in school and at home.
Our ELSA will help children learn to understand their emotions and respect the feelings of those around them. At Sea Mills Primary we provide space and time for pupils to think about their personal circumstances and how they can manage them.
If you feel you or your child or you need any additional support then please speak to any of the staff team.
Community
We have strong links with the local community and are closely affiliated with the Children’s Centre which is run from our Nursery building.
We host and co-host many community events. We link regularly with the Children’s Centre, St Edyth’s Church and Highgrove Church as well as leading our own free holiday breakfast clubs and children events during school holidays e.g. discos, family fayres, children’s days
Please keep an eye out on the main school page for our holiday events and the Church’s Facebook pages for more details of events.
