Growing Together: Children’s Mental Health Week
Children's Mental Health Week provides an opportunity for us to shine a spotlight on the importance of children's mental health. The theme of the week was ‘Growing Together’ and we started by sharing a virtual assembly and lesson resources which led to lots of discussion about how we have grown as people, how we can support others and what our future ambitions are.
As a way of encouraging children in Upper School to think about their own ambitions they enjoyed sharing Sky Brown's story. Their ambitions were varied but included being an author, footballer and scientist, and the children were excited to hear that numerous Eversfield pupils have gone on to achieve exactly those ambitions.
Children in Middle School created an aspiration tree with gold growth stars detailing what they would like to achieve this term in their learning and behaviour towards others. Our youngest children in Kindergarten talked about their feelings, read stories and joined HRH The Duchess of Cambridge for a special Cbeebies story about a little owl who learns to overcome his fear of the dark.
As part of our growth story as a school, our peer mentors started to learn British sign language with a view to sharing this with the rest of the school during summer term. Learning BSL not only offers cognitive benefits and greater cultural integration with the deaf and hard of hearing community, importantly it shows a growth mindset.
During the popular Wellbeing Wednesday lunch time sessions many children took part in mindfulness activities and enjoyed the opportunity for some quiet time with their friends. To provoke thought, a series of posters were placed in the sports changing rooms challenging the children to identify how the featured footballers were feeling. This activity helped the children realise that everyone, even their sports idols, experience and express a range of emotions and helped them consider how we all must manage our feelings.
It's good for children to hear about their growth from those who love them the most, so we invited parents to share with their children answers to two questions: “What do you love about my personality?” and “What have I done to make you really proud?”
Resources and Downloads
In support of Children’s Mental Health Week, children’s mental health charity Place2Be shared a range of free resources for families including top tips and short reads covering everything from how to handle sibling rivalry, secondary school transition, body image and bereavement.