September 2024

Wellbeing Welcome Week

Our first week back after the summer holidays was

Wellbeing Welcome Week.

The children from Reception class through to Year 6 were introduced to the Zones of Regulation in class and during whole school assemblies. In class the children also took part in a range of activities to support their wellbeing.

Each class has an interactive display so the children can identify their emotions throughout the course of the day.

The Zones of Regulation provides an easy way to think and talk about how we feel on the inside and sorts emotions into four coloured Zones.  It can then foster self-regulation and emotional control.

For example, given a stressful or frustrating experience, a person who can self-regulate well is able to remain calm and organised to successfully negotiate the event.

 Staff CPD 

On Monday 9th September,

Kaylee Ranft from the Piece of Mind Team very kindly delivered an refresher staff CPD session linked to Anxiety in Children.

We looked at what anxiety is, the different types of anxiety and behaviours relating to it.

Many thanks to Kaylee for delivering the session - it was very useful.

Colour Run

We held our annual Colour Run in school on Wednesday 11th of September.

Being active is known as being one of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing

The children had a fantastic time!

Many thanks to the School Sports Partnership for coming into school to run this event!

Year 6 Friendship Support

On Thursday 12th September, Louise from the Piece of Mind Team came into Year 6 to deliver the first of a three-part programme of support based upon managing friendships.

As a core part of school life, children need friendships to develop socially, emotionally and cognitively to get the most out of school and life in general. Friendships are vital in terms of emotional wellbeing and development, providing children with a sense of purpose and belonging as well as developing important life skills like getting along with other people, empathy and conflict resolution.

Piece of Mind Team support  in Year 3

On Wednesday 26th of September, Louise from the Piece of Mind Team will begin the first of five sessions of support for the Year 3 class. The programme is called We Eat Elephants and focuses on children's emotional literacy and introduces cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) principles, including the thinking-feeling connection and problelm solving.  The introduction to CBT at an age-appropriate level uses engaging, story-based scenarios based on four characters to support children identify emotions and consider helpful and unhelpful thoughts and behaviours.  The aim of the sessions is to help children understand why the feel the way that they do.

The Decider Skills for Year 4 and Year 5

On 1st October 2024, Ashley from the Piece of Mind Team started a block of sessions in Year 4 and Year 5 called "The Decider Skills"

The Decider Skills is an initiative-taking and preventative approach aimed to reduce the impact of emotional distress, teaching coping strategies to use when experiencing difficult emotion.  It uses a combination of CBT and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy based skills to help children understand their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. 

There are 12 Decider Skills and these aim to teach young people new ways of how to deal with distressing situations; help them learn to recognise their feelings; and how to have a good relationship with others in a more helpful way. The Decider Skills are delivered in a creative way, using role play, props and imagery to make them easier to learn and memorable.

Children learn the following skills:

 Distress Tolerance

Mindfulness

Emotional Regulation

Interpersonal Effectiveness

We are very lucky to be able to have a practitioner come into our school to deliver this to our Year 4 and Year 5 class as there are not many practitioners trained in delivering The Decider Skills. 

We send  a very big thank you to Ashley from the Piece of Mind Team!

October 2024

World Mental Health Day

Thursday 10th October 2024 was World Mental Health Day and the official theme set by the World Federation for Mental Health was "It is time to prioritise mental health in the workplace".  It was an opportunity for everyone to improve their knowledge and raise awareness of mental health issues. This was discussed in class and in a whole school assembly as a reminder to us all about the things we can do to look after our mental health and support others with their wellbeing too!

In 2023 the theme for World Mental Health Day was "Mental Health is a universal human right."

We held a whole school assembly and were set a task by Ant and Dec to discuss what is on our minds.  This was done as a homework task or some of us did this in class, along with other activities to support mental health.

Jiggly Jog

We held our annual Finchale Family Jiggly Jog on 11th October 2024 and were blessed with lovely sunny weather all day!

Thank you to everyone who supported this event and joined in with some of the 5 WAYS TO WELLBEING!

FEEL CONNECTED, BE ACTIVE, NOTICE, KEEP LEARNING and GIVE.

2024 photos to follow!

Some of our families who took part in 2023

November 2024

World Kindness Day

The theme this year highlighted the importance of empathy, understanding, and cooperation to create a more harmonious and caring world. We are proud to say these are values we promote and discuss at school on a regular basis.

We celebrated World Kindness Day

on Wednesday 13th of November with a challenge set by Mrs Rice.

Every class from Reception to Year 6 were given a bucket full of kindness. KS1 children had to choose a slip out of the bucket and try their best to complete their kindness challenge.

KS2 children were asked to think about different ways they could demonstrate kindness throughout the day.  At the end of the day they wrote down one they were most proud of and put it into the kindness bucket.

In Year 2 the children also wrote an acrostic poem about Kindness.

World Diabetes Day

We dressed in blue and held an assembly to celebrate World Diabetes Day on 14th November 2024 and revisited the topic in assembly on Monday 18th November too.

We learned that the 14th November was chosen to commemorate the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of Insulin along with Charles Best in 1922.

Diabetes can affect every part of a person's life, and can often have an impact on their wellbeing so the aim of World Diabetes Day is to raise awareness and take action on diabetes.

Ned in Year 2 and Nico in Year 3 were very brave and stood up in assembly to tell everyone all about diabetes.

Well done Ned and Nico!