Head’s blog
At Grimsdell wellbeing lies at the heart of all we do and we have a range of approaches that we weave into the curriculum and school experience in order to enable the positive wellbeing of all our pupils and staff.
Our aim is to equip our children with tools and tricks to have an ongoing ‘smile in their tummy’ and to be able to regulate and understand their emotions.
However, sometimes worries and anxieties can feel too much and whilst self-care and self-support can be helpful, there are times when we need to ‘Share our Worries’, which is one of the key points on The Grimsdell Way (our code of conduct).
In assembly today we role-played how worries can manifest through panic, crying, feigning happiness or just a ‘feeling’ we can’t explain. By opening up a dialogue on this the children were able to see that a worry is not something to be ashamed o, it is normal and there are people in our school who can help, such as teachers and teaching assistants, but also our six Mental Health First Aiders all of whom are trained to support children who may need guidance in managing feelings or issues they are experiencing.
We also dealt with the concept of not having a worry and it being ok to feel ok! Sometimes chatter around worries can make children feel they should be worrying about things, so we need to be mindful and balanced, ensuring that the dialogue around mental health is broad and varied.
Our children last week witnessed another assembly where we spread kindness across the school with random acts that made others happy. The impact of this is that children recognise that making others happy makes you feel happy too.
A wonderful example of this occurred in a classroom this week when a little boy had his birthday, a few members of the class independently began to role play creating a tea party for him and by the end every single child was involved in preparing the surprise party!
If you were looking for the meaning of life, you’d do well to search no more and just look at the joy on their faces in this picture. The spontaneity of this meaningful role play/gesture was beautiful.
Mental Health can definitely be enhanced by giving out kindness to others. Try it today and see what happens!
