Wellbeing Week

This week we have been celebrating Wellbeing Week. While wellbeing is always a focus at Pre-Prep, this dedicated week has been a fantastic opportunity to focus our learning around wellbeing, equipping our children with lifelong skills and strategies. We know the importance of wellbeing and self-care and are proud to offer our children a nurturing, safe and supportive environment as they discover the joy of learning and growing. With this in mind we have been delving a little deeper and looking at the science of wellbeing, exploring the importance of the brain and the role it plays in our wellbeing and mental health.  Our children have been learning about the four ‘happy hormones’, serotonin, dopamine, endorphins and oxytocin, discovering what we can do to release these hormones and, when these hormones are released, how we feel as a result.

Our lessons have been inspired by Adrian Bethune’s new book ‘Wellbeing in the Primary Classroom’. We were fortunate enough to welcome Adrian to last year’s Wellbeing Evening at Pre-Prep, as a keynote speaker for this parents’ event.

In his book, Adrian talks about the importance of children being able to step outside their comfort zones. We have been teaching the children that it is good for their wellbeing to spend time in their comfort zones. However, when they step outside their comfort zone into their ‘stretch’ zone, the brain really comes alive and this is where learning takes place.

Over the course of the week discovered the benefits of showing gratitude by focusing on the positives. We will found our inner calm by practising yoga, worked collaboratively as a team to produce a giant piece of art, composed our own music, enjoyed crafting and much more.

Taking inspiration from Ant and Dec’s current campaign, Britain Get Talking, we are challenging our children over the half term break with ‘Pre-Prep, Let’s Get Talking’.  Each child will be given a speech bubble to take home and they will be asked to write or draw any worries or fears that they have and then talk about them with an adult. We want to show them that although talking about your worries can be hard, it helps to alleviate stress and anxiety that they may have.

Mrs J Taylor

Pastoral and Wellbeing Lead