Strength Week: Mind, Body and Community

Our Events Committee and Global Goals Club therefore joined forces to create ‘Strength Week’. Following the success of BIS HCMC ‘Happiness Week’ that took place in April 2018, ‘Strength Week’ aimed to continue to advocate positive student wellbeing. The students aimed to build on ‘Happiness Week’ by not only promoting mental wellbeing but also physical health through 3 different activity strands: Mind, Body and Community. Here, Year 13 student Trang Dang tells us more…

Form time activities

During form times, forms were either assigned to the Mind, Body, or Community Strand and participated in the activities specifically designed for each strand.

For the Mind Strand, students took part in 3 experimental puzzles as well as a Kahoot quiz aimed to help them gain a better understanding of the importance of time and time management.

The Body Strand focused on improving students’ physical wellbeing, by raising awareness of the importance of both nutrition and exercise. For the form activities, they were shown a “Nutritional Top Tips” video, provided by Ms. Topping:

After the video, students were asked to plan a healthy form breakfast together, either using their own recipes or those provided by Ms. Topping.

The Community Strand was a core collaboration between the Events Committee and the Global Goals Club to integrate Peace One Day into Strength Week. To promote peace and strength within the BIS community, forms were asked to sing and record part of the song ‘Heal the World’. Keep an eye out for the release of the final video!

Meme-making competition

As laughter has been scientifically proven to reduce stress and strengthen social connections, we started the week by holding a meme-making competition to help students relax after a full morning of hard work.

There were judges, captions and funny photos supplied by our teachers at each table and players were required to choose the funniest caption for each photo. The overall winner was then decided by our judges. It was a great success and everyone, even the teachers, had fun!

Blind tasting challenge

On Tuesday lunchtime, we held a blind-tasting challenge in the Undercroft. This challenge required students to step outside their comfort zone and hold their nerve as they were asked to taste and guess different types of dried fruits whilst blindfolded. Those who guessed correctly were awarded a prize!

“Egg” race

On Wednesday lunchtime, we had an exciting ‘egg-race’ on the Basketball Court. Participants of the game had to run across the court, whilst balancing a spoon with a rubber ball (“egg”) on top. This competition symbolises the importance of maintaining balance in your life.

‘Random acts of kindness’ bingo

Random acts of kindness are defined as actions that have a positive impact, no matter how big on those around you or the environment.

The bingo scorecard highlighted a range of random kindness acts from not littering, riding a bike or walking to school to sending an encouraging email. The scorecard was placed in the Undercroft and students were able to sign their name against each of the acts they had completed. The huge response we had from students and teachers highlights just how compassionate we are both as individuals and as a community.

Beat the Teacher

On the final day, we held the biggest event of the week; the Beat the Teacher competition. Held in the Theatre, students went head-to-head against their teachers in a range of disciplines; push ups, planks, telling dad jokes, to name a few. The event was a huge success and we would like to give special thanks to the teachers who were able to help us bring such laughter to the students through their participation: Mr. Quarrington, Mr. Mincher, Mrs. Jones, Ms. Topping, Mr. Mountford, Ms. Bostock and of course thank you to all the students that participated!

Remember - strong individuals make strong communities. And we hope that Strength Week has left this message resonating with all the students at BIS HCMC.

Trang Dang, Events Committee