As a school mental health is really important to us, so of course we have joined schools across the world in celebrating World Mental Health Day today.
All of our staff and students were invited to come into school dressed in something yellow as part of the #HelloYellow campaign. Lots of children did so and we have raised a whopping £205.81 for the charity Young Minds.
We were incredibly lucky to be able to have Relax Kids Oldham join us today for World Mental Health Day. They did workshops with Years 4, 5 and 6, which used their seven steps to relaxation. These are movement, play, stretch, feel, breathe, believe and relax, and all of the children who took part did an activity in each of these steps.
Every year group took part in some activities to learn how to stay mentally healthy too!
Reception talked about how yellow can be a colour that makes you feel happy as it is light, bright and cheerful. They then went on to listen to ‘The Colour Monster’ story and discussed how different colours can represent different feelings and emotions. The children enjoyed relating to their own personal experiences of things that make them feel happy, sad, calm, scared, angry, loved etc. The children then went on to colour in their own picture of the colour monster and tell me about how their monster was feeling linked to the colour they had chosen to colour him in and again talk about what makes them feel in such a way.
Year One had a mindfulness session, took regular brain breaks throughout the day and used their class mascot to help them talk about their feelings, emotions and aspirations. They then created some feelings bee collages.
Year Two had a discussion about how they could help their friends when they are feeling upset. They then created a kindness draw, which they all added their own kind message to. Whenever someone in their class feels upset, they can now pick a positive message from the jar to help them feel better.
Year Three created some mindful bunting for their classroom, practiced their breathing techniques and spoke about being kind to each other. They then wrote down their top ten positive affirmations and positive thoughts and created kindness cups to give to people who they thought were really kind towards them.
Year Five took part in some mindful colouring, discussed how we can control our emotions and created posters about controlling emotions.