Children's Mental Health Week 2022

We were very proud to be supporting Children’s Mental Health again this year. It is a really important week and one that we look forward to immensely.

The theme of this year's celebration was 'Growing Together'. Considering how we have grown and how we continue to grow, helping others along the way.

Every morning Mrs Seedall shared a ‘Growth Story’ of an inspirational person, who has come across big challenges in their life, faced them head on and come out fighting! These were made available by Place2Be. You can read more their website here.

Students in Years 7, 8 and 9 looked at Maslow's Hierarchy of Need. For a child to be successful in school, they need to be well fed, sleeping well, feeling safe at home and have confidence in themselves. When these are achieved they can reach their full potential 'Self -actualisation'.

Maslow created a pyramid to show this growth and students were asked to fill speech bubbles, to show how you meet each need. The image below shows the needs:

So, for example,

• Physiological need could be - 'get 8 hours sleep a night', 'eat a well balanced diet', 'drink plenty of water'

• Safety could be - 'be aware of safe internet useage', be home when your parents/carers ask', 'always tell people at home where you are'

• Love/Belonging could be - 'enjoy healthy friendships', 'be kind', 'have fun with others', 'spend quality time with family'

• Esteem could be - 'working hard in school', 'celebrating small wins', 'participating in self care', 'celebrating individuality', 'enjoy being different'

• Self Actualisation could be - 'reach your full potential, 'be the best version of you', 'trying your best at all times'.

Using these examples, our students created bubbles and you can see a selection of their amazing work below and they are also on display in school for everyone to see: