Children's Mental Health and Wellbeing 2023
Children’s Mental Health Week 2023 took place from 6-12 February 2023.
This year’s theme was Let’s Connect.
Let’s Connect is about making meaningful connections. People thrive in communities, and this connection is vital for our wellbeing. When we have healthy connections – to family, friends and others – this can support our mental health and our sense of wellbeing.
For Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, we encouraged people to connect with others in healthy, rewarding and meaningful ways.
Let's Connect Video
This poem is taken from the book 'The Same Inside', published by Macmillan
Year 1
Year 1 had a theme of connecting for Mental awareness week. They completed a hula hoop activity where they got into a big circle and had to pass around a hula hoop, without dropping it or disconnecting. They had to say something that connects them all for example they all come to the same school or that they are all children. They also had a special dress up day to express themselves and their personalities.
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Year 1 Photo's
Year 2
Year 2 did a hula-hoop activity where they got in a circle of 10 children. They held hands to work as a team to get the hoop around. Then they got 2 hoops to make it more challenging. Year 2 also did a hand printing activity, where they drew around their hand and wrote positive affirmations about themselves. They were also asked to show love and gratitude to someone they care about. They also had a challenge to do something kind for someone without them knowing, then on Friday they talked about what they did for each other.
Year 3
We discussed the different types of people in our community who we could connect with. As a table, we then planned an activity or a party to help connect with others in our community and talked about the importance of connecting with others.
Our ideas included:
- A religious party where people bring food and clothing from their own religions and faiths.
- A garden party for the elderly
- A karaoke party for people in care homes.
- A school disco where other school children can meet each other.
- A car wash for public services such as police/fire fighters and paramedics.
Mental awareness week (year 4)
For mental awareness week, in year 4,they did multiple types of activities . They did the following activities:
* WELLBEING HANDS- Every child got an individual paper hand to write what they thought of mental health.
*MENTAL HEALTH YOGA - So they could calm down and have a break from things that stress them.
*INVITATIONS FOR ELDERLY PEOPLE - They wrote invitations to elderly people for a party at school or the nearest park. As an act of kindness.
PUPIL VOICE- YEAR 4
What is mental health?
“Mental heath is being healthy” Siara
“Mental heath is being healthy in your mind” Sara
Why is looking after your mental health important?
You can have a healthy body” Islam
“You will have a positive mind set” Valerie
“If you don’t then you will feel weak” Siara
“So we don’t have low self-esteem” Amari
How can we look after our mental health?
“By being kind and calm” Samreen
“Try meditating” Ianis
“We can exercise” Re Marnae
Why is it important that we have mental health week?
“So we can learn about mental health and know how to care for your own mental health”. Cairo
“So we can learn more about mental health week and what it is” Ilaina
Year 5 Connections
Year 6
For Mental Health week in Year 6, we started off by making a connection spiral which showed who we connected with and how often we did this. We also included people or pets who may have passed away. We also made an A-Z of things that we like about the internet. e.g. A for apps. Following our topic of WW2, we watched a video about a man named Fred who was taken away from his family during the war. We then made a poster of similarities and differences between ourselves today and Fred back in the 1940’s.
Dress to Express
