Place 2 Be's Children's Mental Health Week took place from 6th - 12th February; as a school, we celebrated this day on Friday 10th February.

This year's theme was 'Let's Connect' and we encouraged the children to make healthy, rewarding, and meaningful connections in different areas of their life. Below you will see the summary of our day written by one of our Wellbeing Ambassadors, Delilah H.

'Today, for Children's Mental Health Week, the theme was 'Let's Connect' and to represent that, everyone in the school wrote their name (and class) on a single link in a paper chain, which will be connected with every other child in the school, highlighting how we are all connected as one big school. One of the initial activities was in our classes where we got into small circles and held hands, we then tried to pass a hula hoop all of the way round our circle without disconnecting our hands. We even tried to do this without talking, showing that connections don't have to always be spoken. We also wrote post cards tp our loved ones to highlight the importance of family connections. Some of us wrote simple messages such as 'Miss You, or 'Keep Smiling' while others wrote longer messages to family members we had not seen for a while. To develop the connections within our class, we played class bingo games which involved going around the class to find the children who matched the personality or fact on our bingo card. Just before lunch, we spent time with our buddies from our partner class learning more about their interests and likes, developing the intra-school connections too.

Also, during the day, we all watched three videos about different connections in our lives: connections with animals/pets, connections across different generations and connections with our teachers. Without doubt, we feel we understand the importance of these connections far more now. 

To end the day, we focused on connecting through dance. Each year group went into the hall to learn the 'Jerusalema' dance, taught by dance instructor Mitch. After learning the dance as a year group, we then went outside onto the field and put it together with the other year groups too, performing a whole school version of this dance. 

Altogether we have had a brilliant day learning about the importance of connections and how it links closely without mental health and wellbeing. A special thank you goes to Mr Wright who organised the day for us.'