This week was Children's Mental Health week and we focused on the 5 Ways to Wellbeing, which are :Give, Connect, Learn, Take Notice and Be Active. 

What a fantastic week it was. 

On Monday, we focused on 'giving'. The children made thank you cards for someone special and we talked about how we can 'give' to others. Thank you so much for the very generous donations, which were collected today by the foodbank and were greatly received. These will really help local families in need. KS2 wrote some wonderful cards and letters for the residents of our local care home, which I'm sure will cheer them up!

On Tuesday, our focus was to 'connect'. The children brought in board games and activities to share. Each KS2 class joined with a KS1 class to play games and share their activities. It was so wonderful to witness all the interactions between the classes. The children also made compliment cards for someone else in their class, which was really wonderful. The effort they made to draw things their chosen person would like was really lovely.

On Wednesday, the focus was to 'learn' and while we learn things every day at school, we wanted to learn something a little different so I asked Mrs Direnzo to teach us some Makaton. Mrs Direnzo went into each class from Nursery to Year 6 to show us the Makaton signs for different feelings. All the children were engaged and tried hard to keep using the signs. Since Wednesday was about 'learning' new things we also looked at learning how to count to 10 in different languages. In Year 1 Mrs Neville taught us how to count to 10 in Russian and Chinese!

On Thursday, the focus was to 'take notice'. Each class paired up with another class for a yoga session with Miss Cicero and had mindfulness sessions in class. KS2 drew some wonderful still life pictures while EYFS and KS1 went on a sensory walk. Year 6 decided to really take notice of their class mates by focussing and drawing a physical feature of their table partners. What fantastic artists we have at St Joseph's!

On Friday, we concentrated on 'being active' and came to school in comfortable sportswear. We enjoyed fantastic Just Dance sessions and got active. The weather wasn't our friend but we made the most of it.

A truly fantastic week that was hopefully enjoyed by all and to top it off, no homework to worry about!

From all the positive feedback and pupil voice I have received we have decided to implement a board game afternoon at the end of every half term, starting from the end of next half term. More to follow on that in due course. 

Also, Mrs Direnzo and I will be teaching a weekly Makaton sign during Monday morning whole school assemblies, to encourage both children and staff to learn something new!

Have a wonderful weekend, 

Mrs Carpineta