Wellbeing

This is a much used phrase at the moment and with good cause. The stresses and strains upon us
all over the last year have been significant and will continue to be so in the weeks and months ahead. Here in school we have been considering how we can further support children’s wellbeing while they are having to stay at home and as we hopefully get them back into school in the coming weeks (and also parent wellbeing and our own wellbeing too!). We have created a series of activities designed to support wellbeing, to balance academic work expectations at home, reduce screen time and hopefully be very enjoyable for children and families.
 
 
To incorporate this we will reduce the expectation to 4 hours of English and 4 hours of Maths a week for all year groups plus their foundation subjects. Of course if there are activities there that you would like to complete on other days that is also fine but they would need to be done as well as the subject work set on these days. If you have siblings across the schools and want to complete wellbeing activities together this is also great and staff will be happy to see this on your posts. For example if you have a child in Reception and one in Year 5 then of course the younger child can join in with the wellbeing activity as appropriate and this can be posted onto Tapestry, Seesaw or Google Classrooms. Here in school lessons will continue as they are at present with staff managing and responding to the wellbeing of their classes throughout the week. Children in our bubbles are very welcome to also enjoy these wellbeing activities with their families at home in the evenings and at weekends. We have trialled some of these approaches over the last week and will be getting them fully in place for next week.
 
 
Another important aspect looking after our mental health is for us all to maintain contact with friends and family during the lockdown. There are many apps and platforms available via the internet, on our computers and on our phones that allow us to connect with each other. We have been doing this at home to be able to connect with friends and family that we have not been able to see over the last year and although it is no replacement for actually being with friends and family it does help us all to feel connected. I would encourage all families to make best use of these platforms but to also supervise the use of these technologies, particularly with younger children. We are continuing to look here in school at how we can facilitate face to face contact for children in their classes & form groups and there are technical, safeguarding, child protection and organisational challenges that we need to overcome.