This week we were interveiwed by Mindmate! They collected our views on mental health, strategies we use to support mental health, what we are doing in school around mental health and well-being and our ideas for the future. We really enjoyed our interview and you can read the blog published on the Mindmate website! 

This week we met with Liz Neill - A Mindmate Ambassador who works with Mindmate. She enjoyed listening to our ideas and shared lots of resources and ideas with us. She was particularly impressed with our views on the  importance of physical health and healthy eating to our mental health. We are going to be interviewed by Mindmate and a blog will be published on their website in the new year! 

This week we had a meeting with Mrs Warren. We discussed our ideas with her. We have agreed that we will: 

• Lead a session in each class to explain what Mental Health and Wellbeing is. 
• Organise each class to have Mindful Minutes at the beginning of the day and after lunch.
• Continue to explore the idea of an outside wellbeing space for children to use at break and lunch times. 
• Organise a new friendship stop for the school. 
• Organise some further assemblies next term. 

Here is a summary of the feedback we received from our classes across school. From this we came up with a list of actions. Next week we are going to meet with Mrs Warren and present our ideas to her. We will let you know how we get on! 

1. What is Mental Health and Well-being?	Mental State and emotions.  How you think and feel.  Mental health and can make you physically ill.  Thoughts and feelings.  Knowing how to control your feelings. Knowing what to do and how to get help.  How to take care of yourself.  Good diet, sleep and exercise.  Feeling good.
2. What ideas do you have that will help children’s Mental Health and Well-being in school?	Walking/daily mile (exercise) with music. Friendship stop. Chill out area/ an area to relax. Space for drawing/reading at breaks and lunchtimes.  Meditation coming into school on a morning and after lunch.  Continue to use our class worry boxes.  Check in with each other about how we are feeling.
3. What already happens in school that helps Mental Health and Wellbeing?	Class worry boxes.  Promote healthy eating. P.S.H.E. lessons. Super Mood Movers.  Themed assemblies (P.S.H.E/Mental Health) Adults help us.  Quiet reading time.  Colouring area at lunch time.  Nurture garden at lunchtime.  Learning Mentor. Mental Health Week.  Mindmate Ambassadors.
4. Anything else you would like to know about Mental Health and Well-being?	More help with controling our emotions.  Help recognising our emotions.

 

This week we held an assembly where we introduced ourselves to the school as the new Mindmate Ambassadors. We explained some of our ideas to the children from our first meeting - they were impressed! We decided to create a questionaire to ask the classes what they already knew about Mental Health and Well-being and what other ideas they had for our school. We will share our outcomes next week!

• MindMate Ambassadors Questions

Welcome to our new Mindmate Ambassadors 2022- 2023! We thoroughly enjoyed our first meeting. We met together and discussed our ideas for the year. We watched some video clips of other Mindmate Ambassador groups in Leeds and took inspiration from their enthusiasm and ideas. Next we looked through a recent mental health and well-being questionnaire given out to the classes across school and reviewed the answers and used them to come up with an action plan. 

My name is Isobelle and I am in Y6. I wanted to become a Mindmate Ambassador because I like helping people and I can help people be mindful. I think there should be places in school for children who need help

• mindful area/quiet space 
• Lots of Mental Health learning for our pupils.

My name is Jacob and I am in Y6. I wanted to become a Mindmate Ambassador because I want to discuss Mental Health in school and help people: 

• Talk about how you feel about mental health 
• Help people who are struggling 

My name is Linda and I am in Y6. I wanted to become a Mindmate Ambassador because I think Mental Health is really important!

I would like to help people at school in lots of different ways. 

My name is Erin and I'm in Y6. I wanted to become a Mindmate Ambassador because Mental Health is really important.

I would love to help people who are struggling and suggest relaxing activities to help calm them down. 

 

My name is Lexie and I wanted to become a Mindmate Ambassador because I care about other people's mental health and I want to help people with: 

• have positive Mental Health 
• have quiet places to go if need to talk to someone. 

My name is Leila and I am in Year 6. I wanted to become a Mindmate Ambassador because children in our school will be happier!

Also, then we can have more calm environments and relaxing spaces for children to go to if they're feeling worried or need to talk.