A parent workshop to explain the project in more detail will be happening on Wednesday 30 October (more details to follow).
The project will run across the Primary School, from Early Years to Year 6, and will start with an introduction to wellbeing and a discussion about who is here to help students. We will then have regular circle times each week across all year groups to talk about issues that are relevant to each age group.
Children will be encouraged to reflect on different feelings and will also discuss ways in which these might be recognised. The overarching message will be that it is okay to have all kinds of feelings and they will develop strategies to help deal with different emotions in order to achieve more positive outcomes throughout their learning journies.
In terms of resources, we will have ‘feelings boxes’ in each classroom which will allow children the opportunities to open up and talk. We will also continue with a previous project called ‘URstrong’ which looks at how to deal with friendship conflicts and teaches children to ‘Talk It Out’ with their friends. It gives specific steps to follow in order to resolve friendship fall outs, which are often a source of upset for all ages.
Research on both mindfulness and physical exercise shows that these have a significant positive impact on children’s wellbeing and, therefore, on their ability to achieve academically. Mindfulness sessions will happen throughout the term to give children time to ‘stop, breathe, think and relax’. We also have the support of our elite athlete Marlon Devonish in ‘Top tips to get the children more active’.
A drop-in chat room run by Miss Caldwell and myself will be open on Friday lunchtimes for students to come and talk about any problems and worries . Reminder posts about the chat room will be sent out on Seesaw, but please do encourage children to use it if they are worried about anything - we are here to help. Staff will be posting regular Seesaw updates so that you can see how the project is working, the discussion points that are being raised, language we are using to support the children opening up, and strategies we are providing.
Thank you in advance for your support with this project.