2021-2022
Well-being with Winnie the Pooh – Between Monday 28th March and Friday 1st April 2022, we celebrated International Children’s Book Day which is on Saturday 2nd April 2022.
Our Opal and Amethyst Learning Zones have entered a competition run by Vision for Education. Vision provided copies of the Winnie the Pooh book and DVD and the Learning Zones have explored wellbeing by learning more about each character.
They learnt that Piglet is very anxious and worried and that Eeyore can get very depressed and sad. The children worked with Mrs McArdle to create some amazing art work for our Wellbeing Week display and thought about some advice and support they would give the characters to make them feel better.
Our very youngest children have shown real empathy and understanding of well-being and learnt a lot about how to look after their own mental health. They decided to make a ‘Worry Honey Pot’ so that they could write down their worries then put them in the pot to make them disappear. The display is situated in our Thrive area and the ‘Worry Honey Pot’ has also been used by some of our older children working with Mrs Parvin (Thrive Practitioner) who have chosen to put their worries in the pot, too.
A photo of their display has been submitted to Vision for Education for a chance to win a personalised ‘Buddy Bench’ for the playground. Each child participating will receive a certificate and one lucky child will receive a copy of the Winnie the Pooh book collection to keep! Fingers crossed Stanhope Barrington’s entry stands out.
Here are some helpful Wellbeing resources…
- Building Resilience in Children 0-12
- Emotionally Based School Avoidance
- The Anxious Child
- Emotional Health and Resilience Leaflet
Zones of Regulation
Across school every member of the team wears cards which we refer to as the Zones of Regulation. The team have all had training on using this system of managing well-being and on Feel Good Friday we held a whole school assembly to relaunch it again with the children.
Children and adults are asked which zone they are in and the coloured zones reflect the following feelings and emotions:
The Blue Zone – sad, unhappy, bored, fed-up or unwell
The Green Zone – happy, calm, relaxed and focussed
The Yellow Zone – excited, silly, worried or unsure
The Red Zone – angry, frustrated, scared or annoyed
Staff role model by discussing with children which zone they are in and why. As the system is embedded children are becoming more able to describe their own feelings and emotions in terms of which zone they are in.
The Zones of Regulation are also used to talk about how we can move ourselves from the blue zone to the green zone for example. This helps the children to develop resilience and life-long coping strategies.
2019-2022
WellbeingBooklet_2021
How-to-Stay-Calm-in-a-Global-Pandemic-Free-ebook
Emotional wellbeing resources
Thrive Wellbeing Toolkits
The Thrive Wellbeing Toolkits are useful resources packed with ideas to promote wellbeing in your child and yourself in this challenging time…take a look:
Thrive-Parent-and-Carers-Survival-Kit
Creative-expression-of-emotion-at-home-parents
Thrive-Connection-toolkit-for-children-up-to-age-7
Thrive-Connection-toolkit-for-children-up-to-age-11
Thrive-Connection-toolkit-for-children-up-to-age-16
Thrive Wellbeing toolkit for children up to age 7
Thrive Wellbeing toolkit for children up to age 11
Thrive Wellbeing toolkit for children up to age 16
Kindness Activity Pack
The British Red Cross have produced some excellent resources to help parents and children. The resources are aimed at supporting positive emotional well-being and mental health. There are home learning resources on:
- Understanding Stress – this resource explains in simple terms what stress is and how to reduce it.
- Circles of Control – this resource helps us to understand what we can and can’t control and how understanding worries can help us to feel better.
- Meaningful Connections – this resource shows how keeping in touch with others is important to alleviate loneliness and to maintain social interaction.
These sections contain short animations to share with your children.
In addition, there is a Kindness Activity Pack which is definitely worth a look. All of these packs are available from The British Red Cross.
WAAP Help and Support Advice
Help and Support flyer November 2020
Dot Day 2020
Dot Day focusses on everyone ‘having a go’. The children all created their own dots under the theme of: ‘Dots of Kindness’. They were then put up in the library making a vibrant display. This is part of our Emotional Wellbeing programme, Thrive.
Here We Are 2020
Everyone took part in a whole school integration topic, ‘Here We Are’ based on the book ‘Here We Are’ by Oliver Jeffers. We focused on integrating the children back into school and finding out about ourselves and the ever-changing world that we live in. Ensuring everyone in the school community feels settled and safe is a central focus. Supporting wellbeing continues to be of central importance to ensure that every pupil is ready to learn.
Thrive Activities – Summer 2020
Emotional Wellbeing – Summer 2020
Emotional Wellbeing – Summer 2 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 16
Emotional Wellbeing – Week 16 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 15
Emotional Wellbeing – Week 15 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 14
Emotional Wellbeing – Week 14 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 13
Emotional Wellbeing – Week 13 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 12
Emotional Wellbeing – Week 12 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 11
Emotional Wellbeing – Week 11 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 10
Thrive Activities – Week 9
Emotional Wellbeing – Week 9 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 8
Emotional Wellbeing – Week 8 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 7
Thrive Activities – Week 6
Emotional Wellbeing -Week Six 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 5
Thrive Activities – Week 4
Emotional Wellbeing -Week Four 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 3
The Power of Kindness
Emotional Wellbeing-The Power of Kindness-2020
Emotional Wellbeing-The Power of Kindness Calendar-2020
Active Coping Calendar: April 2020
Thrive Activities – Week 2
Thrive activities for parents of children up to age 7 – week two (1)
Thrive Activities – Week 1
Thrive activities for parents of children up to age 11 – week one (1)
Some suggestions from Mrs Howes to support emotional wellbeing:
Routine – It’s important to keep the family in a routine to help focus you and the children. One hour slots are great and can be filled with exercise, crafts, creative activities, reading, games and much more. Learning doesn’t need to be at a table and can take place through lots of different ways. The length of time will depend upon the age of your child and their ability to concentrate for sustained periods of time. You could try using small slots of 10 mins then building up their stamina.
Exercise – We all know how important exercise is for the mind and body. There are lots of different ideas and suggestions online. Here are a few you might like to try:
· An outdoor obstacle course
· Cosmic Kids Yoga
· Joe Wicks 5 minute moves
· Mindfulness – The listening game (Cosmic Kids have a range of different activities – Zen Den)
· Have a party/ Disco. Put on some classics from your childhood and show them the moves from your era!
Reading – Reading is so important and can help calm and relax the children. There are many online programmes, such as:
· Storyline online
· CBeebies Bedtime Stories
· Stories from authors – many authors are reading their own books to bring them alive!
· Encourage the family to read a group. The children can read books that are familiar and make them feel happy. What a lovely way to share happy memories.
· Writing your own books – stories. Children have such an amazing imagination and might come up with their own stories or comic strips to share. You too can join in with the fun.
Getting creative – Arts and crafts are a great way to forget about things and have fun in the moment.
· Playdough is easy to make and can give hours of creative fun.
· Salt dough is also quick to make and can be fun to make models that be painted after drying.
· Junk modelling – use your left over ‘junk’ and let you imagination run wild.
· Take your pencil for a walk – allow your pencil to flow all across the page. The colour in all of the different gaps.
· Make a think of you card for someone that you haven’t seen for a while. Imagine their face when then they see it!
Go for a nature walk in your garden. Take the time to be quiet. What can you hear? See? Smell? Feel? How often do we get the chance to just be?
Please share any of your activities with us at: stanhopebarrington@durhamlearning.net . We’d love to see what you have been up to!
World Mental Health Day
Our school celebrated World Mental Health Day on Thursday 10th October 2019. Each class did a range of different activities linked to mental health. Our theme for the day was the colour yellow.
Class 5 made yellow friendship bracelets and gave them to someone to let them know that they cared. The children had a whole school assembly based on ‘What is Mental Health?’ and in the afternoon every class took part in yoga and mindfulness activities.
It is essential that we talk about mental health and where better to begin than with our own school.
Dot Day
Dot Day focusses on everyone ‘having a go’. The children all created their own dots using only 1 colour. They were then put up in the main entrance as our Dot Tree. This is part of our Emotional Wellbeing programme, Thrive.
