World Mental Health Day
Jarrow Cross held a mental health day in November due to our boiler troubles back in October!
This year’s theme was: TALK!
Juice and Jabber:
We thought there was no better way to implement this theme but to hold a ‘Juice and Jabber’ event. We took inspiration from the adult event version of ‘Tea and Talk’. As well as this, we found that last year’s ‘Speed Talking’ was a hit, so we wanted to do something similar.
We timetabled this event so each class worked with or ‘talked to’ another class from another year group. Once we got into the hall, we grabbed a cup of juice and began our jibber jabbering. We had the most amazing time where we asked ice-breaker questions and played games such as ‘Would you rather’ whist we got to know one another.
The children really enjoyed it and it has encouraged them to talk to children from different year groups much more whist they are outside on the yard!
Class-based tasks:
We listened to the story ‘Find Your Happy’ and then held discussions to address the misconception: You only have good mental health if you are happy all of the time.
We encouraged children to recognise that it is ok not to feel happy all of the time, but what is important is to develop coping mechanisms and strategies to ‘find their happy’ again.
From this, we created our very own school version of this text. The text was shared during our celebration worship and is on display to read at any time!