At the Dove-Shell Federation we believe in providing every child with the opportunity to experience an outstanding education academically, emotionally and socially. We strongly believe that by identifying the barriers to learning, we can provide an inspiring and relevant curriculum that considers the whole child and provides the necessary support for pupils to achieve, develop and reach their true potential.
We are committed to ensuring that our schools develop a Trauma and Mental Health Informed Approach to ensure that all our pupils develop positive mental health and resilience, enabling them to fully engage in life and learning. There is a growing body of research and understanding of the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on long term mental and physical health and the protective factors that mitigate the potential impact. It is our aim to maximise the protective factors of the Federation by creating an environment of safety that has strong, positive and supportive relationships at its heart.
Our priority as a Federation is to ensure psychological and environmental safety first; it is the foundation on which everything else depends. The ability to learn without fear in order to relate to others and engage in learning. Through a trauma informed approach our focus is not only the physical environment, but the relational environment and the very culture and ethos of our schools’. This requires emotionally regulated and available adults who can provide essential calming and containing of our pupils, their parents/carers or each other when they are overwhelmed by an event, situation or their feelings. In some circumstances, this may mean that literal physical containment of each other to keep all safe.