As part of our Amber Flag initiative with Pieta House our Wellbeing Committee ran wellbeing week last week in school. The committee wanted our week to focus on building community in our school so we looked at how we could achieve this at a class level and also on a whole school level.
To work on building community within our classrooms each class started their day with a morning meeting. The feedback from classes on this appears to be positive with some classes asking if they can continue to do them even after our wellbeing week finished! Here are Junior and Senior Infants enjoying their Morning Meeting with Ms. McHugh.
During the middle of the day then each class had a mindful moment. This really helped everyone to take a minute and ground themselves again. Classes listened to some lovely guided meditations on the woodlands, at the end of the rainbow and the sleepy train. After big lunch each day we did whole school name games to help the children get to know more names and children from other classrooms. We were really impressed with how good everyone's memory is! We all learned some new names and faces and have decided if we see our new friends coming or going to school we will greet them by name. Our wellbeing committee felt that this would be especially nice to ensure children felt noticed and included. Here are some photos of our name games.
As well as those activities that went on throughout the week we had various stand alone activities on different days. On Monday we had Zumba with Frank, always a firm favourite with the kids. It's not hard to see why with the infectious music and the great moves! Just look at 1st and second class go!
On Tuesday we had our Roots of Empathy family visit with Amanda and Daniel. 5th class were so excited to see how much Daniel had grown and that he had hit a new milestone of sitting up. They were really impressed by the persistence he showed when he was trying to roll over to reach a toy. He was getting tired but he still didn't give up. Daniel is a great teacher showing us that even if we find things difficult and may not get them 1st go, we should keep trying!!
Wednesday saw the arrival of Grandparent's Day which was a huge success. Thank you to Fr. Michael for saying a beautiful mass for our grandparent's. After the mass the Grandparent's made there way to our school hall for tea, coffee and treats. The biggest treat of course being the little performances by each class. Well done to all classes. A big thank you must be extended to 6th Class of course who helped host our grandparent's. They ensured that all visitors had chairs, milk on their table and told our servers if the hot drinks needed to be topped up. We hope all our grandparent's enjoyed their special day!
On Thursday 5th and 6th Classes continued their fundamental movement skills lessons with Matthew Boniwell. These lessons are in partnership with Courcey Rovers and the children are benefitting hugely from them. After midterm the lessons will be extended to 3rd and 4th classes also. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side on Thursday for a mindful walk in nature so we postponed this activity until Friday. It was the perfect weather to be outside in nature!!
To wrap up a very successful wellbeing week we had a fun Friday. Children wore their comfy clothes to school and all classes took part in a variety of fun activities throughout the day. At the end of the day we had wellbeing stations where the children could get a flavour of all the enjoyable activities they could do to keep them feeling good. We had a lego station in Ms. McHugh's Room, playdough in Ms. Daly's room, mindful colouring in Mrs. Twomey's room. Our Active School's Committee and Ms. O' Callagahan set up active stations in the hall. Ms. Ryan had pointillism painting in her room and Mrs. Walsh and Ms. Harte had a calming sensory space in Ms. Harte's room. It was a lovely way to round up our wellbeing week.