Beechwood Junior School, Southampton
Our Hamish & Milo Story
Beechwood Junior is an inner city, coastal school in Southampton. It has 360 pupils on roll and is part of the Edwin Jones Partnership, Hamwic Education Trust.
Beechwood Junior School values its local community, celebrates its diversity and strives to meet the needs of all the children it serves through a rich curriculum and growth mindset of belief that “Together we can!”
“At Beechwood we are the heart of our local community and we use our HEART values and learning time as opportunities to understand the world we live in and to help it be the best place it can be.”
The wellbeing of the children at Beechwood Junior is their priority and there is a commitment to ensure that every child will be given the pastoral support and nurture that they need to thrive and to learn academically and emotionally.’
All school staff have a commitment to supporting children’s emotional wellbeing, with three members of staff having completed their Trauma Informed Schools UK Diploma. The Hamish & Milo interventions are monitored by Lucy Baker (SENCO and Inclusion Lead) and run by Maria Seagrave (ELSA). There is a focus on trauma-aware practice and a strong commitment to strengthen practice, embed wellbeing interventions and to enhance the culture of wellbeing within the school.
As part of the Hamwic Trust, Beechwood Junior school became involved in the Hamish & Milo programme and the research study with the University of Bath in the Autumn term 2022.
Maria, as the ELSA, TIS practitioner and lead for Hamish & Milo, took on the role of facilitating the groups and in developing the Hamish & Milo approach. The programme was coordinated and developed as part of the graduated response and range of interventions to meet the children’s needs.
Maria began to run a variety of programmes with groups of children and sometimes to support her ELSA work with 1-1 intervention. She quickly saw the need and the opportunity to support a wide range of children through the different programmes and during the first year facilitated 13 Hamish & Milo intervention groups.
Maria’s room is colourful, bright and full of sock puppet pets!
The puppets live in different baskets and each of the sessions begin with talking about what the puppets have gotten up to during the week living in their baskets!
“The children have thoroughly enjoyed interacting in the sessions. The inclusive structure is enjoyed in every session and the puppets have become real characters within school.”
Children’s work from the range of activities is displayed and the room provides a safe and welcoming space for the children.
Maria’s highlights from the SEMH intervention groups
“A real highlight for me has been using my own puppet ‘Polly’ to create a sense of connection with all the children and leaving ‘Polly notes’ for the children… This has brought children to seek me out to express some emotions they need support with.”
“Creating a celebration at the end of the 10 weeks where all of the children are presented with their work, puppet and certificate in celebration assembly.”
“Using the programme Memories and me has given a particular child the chance to express how they are really feeling after the death of a parent and have built a trusting relationship with an adult who they come to whenever needed.”
“Another child wouldn’t speak at all during the first 7 weeks of the programme but finally felt in a good place where they were able to take part and enjoy the group. On the pupil voice they stated that they enjoyed making the puppet and being with friends. This has been a real breakthrough in being able to communicate with the student.”
Polly
Accessing the supervision hub sessions has been an opportunity for Maria to receive support, share highlights and develop a network of other Hamish & Milo Champions. The sessions have enabled her to gain confidence and to share in the excitement of how the programme is developing within Beechwood and other schools within the Trust. Maria comments:
“Hamish & Milo is a wonderful emotional wellbeing programme that sits alongside Trauma Informed incredibly well. It is easy to follow and the enjoyment that the students and myself feel during the sessions makes us feel extremely uplifted.”
Children’s voice
“The children have all enjoyed the experience and will often seek me out to tell me how they have enjoyed their time in the groups.” said Maria. Some of their comments include:
“I am not alone when I feel alone. I can work through things and I can ask for help.”
“Anger is a good feeling and it is OK to feel anger.”
“I can be an individual.”
“That I will become happy again and that you never have to feel ashamed because of your feelings.”
Seeing the impact of the SEMH interventions
Using Navigator, the digital dashboard has been an opportunity for Maria and the whole team at Beechwood Junior School to see the difference the interventions are making for children. Maria commented: “All of our senior leaders can really see the difference as the data is right there now to be seen.”
“I feel that I have developed my understanding of children’s wellbeing profiles and uploading all the information onto Navigator I can clearly see the impact my efforts have achieved.”
It is clearly only the start of the Hamish & Milo story for Beechwood with further groups identified for the coming year and plans to embed and develop the approach to support greater numbers of children.