At Blue Coat, our pastoral care and the wellbeing of our pupils is a top priority. To coincide with National Children’s Mental Health Week, we gave this a special focus by setting up a school-wide themed week, entitled, ‘BCS Wellbeing Week’.

The theme of this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week has been ‘Growing Together’. The theme asks the children to look at how they have grown emotionally throughout the past two years and how they can help others to grow. The week started with a fantastic talk from children’s psychologist Dr Hazel Harrison. Dr Harrison has produced materials for BBC Bitesize and presents The Brain Lab for BBC, working for both the NHS and private sector and has also recently worked alongside The Premier League to promote wellbeing. The talk, entitled ‘Building Resilience in Lifelong Learners’, looked at the language we use around children and how this language can affect the mindset of those around us. She also provided research and theory about how failure, if used in the right way, can help the children achieve throughout their lives. Dr Harrison has created a postcard that summarises some of the main points of the talk with links to resources she mentioned. This can be downloaded below.

In school, the children were introduced to various activities that can help with their own wellbeing. They looked at how breathing is significantly more than just inhaling oxygen, to exploring the benefits that physical exercise can have on our mindset and wellbeing.

Although the aim of the week was to introduce the children to techniques and activities to help impact their wellbeing, we are all aware that this takes time and is not a quick fix. We need to train our brains to realise positive emotions and celebrate these successes. The children are always encouraged to share any worries they have with a trusted adult.

Mr Hulbert