The mental health of young children is vitally important so, this week, at St. Joseph’s, we celebrated ‘Children’s Mental Health Week’. The theme was ‘My Voice Matters’.
To kick start the week, the school council led a whole school assembly to introduce the theme and ‘worry boxes’ that they had created for each class. These will be checked weekly by the senior mental health lead in school.
The school council also introduced the children to their ‘happy bench’. They have created a bench in the playground where children can sit if they don’t mind someone stopping by and saying hi. One of the pupils commented, “the bench is great. If you’re upset or have nobody to play with, you can sit on the bench and someone always comes over.”
We know the importance of being active for our mental wellbeing so the whole school went on a wellness walk around the local area. The school council created a game for the children to play, whilst they were out walking around, talking about their feelings and expressing themselves. One of the pupils said, “yesterday was lovely. We went to the duck pond and there were lots of ducks. We took feed for them and the ducks came really close.”
Because the mental wellbeing of our children is a priority at St, Joseph’s, we have created a nurture and wellbeing room in school which can be accessed throughout the day. Also, six of our Key Stage 2 pupils have been trained as ‘wellbeing leaders’ and will be running activities for the children at playtimes, both outside and in the nurture room.
We hope that the activities our children have taken part in this week, and the continuing ones, will support our children’s mental health and equip them with tools to express themselves and look after their mental health and wellbeing.
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