Children’s Mental Health week.

At Highlands, if we are able to confidently state that we have, in the last week, made a difference to the general well being of our community this is something that we feel the entire Highlands community should shout very proudly about.

It warms my soul and fills me with such positive hope for the future of our children if we can continue to educate them about looking after and identifying the traits of good mental health. It is widely known and has been supported by the Government that the mental well being of younger generations is more of a focus now that it has ever been before.  Our hope for Highlands is that we nurture a future and work towards a collective goal because “we believe the emotional well being of our community is the centre of everything we do".

The Mindfulness lunch sessions which ran throughout the duration of Children’s Mental Health week were a great success. Many children attended each day and enjoyed the safe and calm environment to reflect and explore their emotions. For many it provided an opportunity which they had not experienced before to understand and gain a deeper understanding of what some of their emotions meant.

The sessions also offered a space for others to just be still and breathe. It reminded us as an entire community the power of learning to stop and listen to our bodies and mind. To explore our imaginations and to learn how the power of breathing and meditation can enable us to be much more productive.

The focus and the discussions which the community and staff all supported enabled this week to be the best Children’s Mental Health week that we have celebrated so far!

Staff themselves also had some mindfulness training – helping them to be active participators as well as teachers. In addition to this, you – our community – displayed such positive involvement by attending the “Chill out with your child” workshop. I would like to thank The Redbridge Institute who offered this session for free and who we hope to arrange a monthly workshop with in the future terms. The success of our children requires the support of the key duty bearers in their life. The stronger we can make the home-school partnership around the needs of our children, the better our outcomes will be.

I hope that this blog is just the first of many which continue to raise the profile of Personal, Social, Health education alongside the importance of the Emotional well being of our children and adults.

Keep an eye out for the PSHCE newsletter that will make its way to you after half term.

Continue to support your children at home by discussing how they are feeling both in their bodies and in their minds. Be open to talking with your children about these topics and your children will learn to be open with you.

Thank you to everyone that enabled the successes described above.

Miss Vorley