Children’s Mental Health Week in the Junior School

As many of you may be aware, last week was Children’s Mental Health week and this year’s theme was Express Yourself. The importance of children and young people’s mental health has never been more critical, particularly during a global pandemic. With children learning from home and their usual routines disrupted, now feels like the most important time to be having these discussions both in the virtual classroom and at home.

The focus for the week was about finding ways to share feelings, thoughts, or ideas, through creativity. In Year 1, we explored what this might look like and decided that you can express yourself in many ways… through art, photography, dance, drama, singing, playing a musical instrument or anything that makes you feel good! Year 4 created feelings boxes and are enjoying ‘Friendship Friday’ each week. In Computing, some girls created Mandala patterns during some mindfulness colouring time. Nursery were visited (virtually) by Dr Clarke who talked to the girls about looking after our bodies and minds. They have also been talking lots about their feelings and using sand timers for a minute of mindfulness.

Many year groups did an activity to express their feelings and drew these inside and outside an outline of a body. Below are some creative examples:

On Friday, the whole Junior School ‘Dressed to Express’. The girls were invited to express themselves through their clothes, hair etc. They wore their favourite colour, outfit or an interesting piece of headwear.