Wellbeing Champions

2022/23

This year we have a mixture of old and new Wellbeing Champions. Our new Champions applied for the role and were chosen for their desire to help others. 

Part of their role is to promote our Anti-Bullying policy across the school. They do this by supporting the other children to have fun and play in the playground – helping with games and activities to encourage inclusion and positive interaction. They are also available to find help for children who may be experiencing bullying behaviours.

Our Wellbeing Champions also promote wellbeing messages and events across the school.

Lunchtime Wellbeing Club

The lunchtime Wellbeing  Club runs every Monday across KS1 and KS2 lunchtimes. Our Wellbeing Champions helped to think of activities for it and also help to run it. They encourage children to join in - and also take part themselves. Each week we try to have different activities that help us to relax and hopefully improve our wellbeing! Examples of activities we  will be doing:

• painting positive messages on rocks
• gratitude paperchains
• mindfulness colouring
• friendship bracelets
• joke station

Anti-Bullying Ambassador Training

On Wednesday 8th March, some of our Wellbeing Champions attended anti-bullying training at Didsbury High School. This was run by The Diana Trust and was attended by several other schools. As we were only able to access ten places, all of our Year 5 Champions attended so that they will be able to continue the good work when they are in Year 6. Names were drawn out of a hat for the remaining four places (we have 14 Wellbeing Champions).

All of our Wellbeing Champions will be taking part in our future anti-bullying work and campaigns.

In the Diana Trust programmes and initiatives, ‘change’ for and by young people is central, including their anti-bullying work, which encourages change in attitudes and behaviours.

Everyone worked really hard on the day, joining in and answering lots of questions. Following the training, the Wellbeing Champions will be choosing which anti-bullying campaign they would like to run - this enables us to make changes in schoool and earn our first badge. We will be meeting soon to decide which of the following areas we want to run our campaign on:

• Respect
• wellbeing
• Online Safety
• Community Action

Watch this space for updates!

Everyone who attended was proud to receive their Anti-bullying Ambassador badge and certificate

Anti-Bullying Week

To launch Anti-Bullying week (14-18th November) this year, the Wellbeing Champions delivered an assembly to the whole school all about how children can reach out to others if they need support. They practised their lines and did a really fantastic job on the day.

Buddy Bench

Last year we did some fundraising so that we could buy a 'Buddy Bench' for the playground - we were finally able to order it in September and it was fitted on the KS2 playground over the half-term break in October.

A buddy bench is a bench which children should sit on if they ever feel sad, upset, worried or perhaps just a little bit lonely. If a child sits on the bench, it shows the Wellbeing Champions, staff and all of the other children that they are in need of a friend or a 'buddy'. 

Buddy benches are a great way for children to make new friends if they don't have the confidence, are shy or suffer from social anxiety. It also helps children express their emotions and help other children understand how they are feeling. As well as promoting friendship, buddy benches promotes inclusion and also help children to understand the feelings of others and encourages them to be kind and caring towards other people.

2021/22

Our 'Wellbeing Champions' were established - children from Years 5 and 6 applied for the job and were appointed. They completed some training sessions around what mental health means. They all wear a 'Wellbeing Champion' armband so that the other children know who they are and can approach them if they need some help or support when on the playground.

Kindness Jars

In December 2021, the Champions came together to think about ways in which we could encourage even more kindness in school. They voted on their different ideas and the winner was to create Kindness Jars for every class. They then applied for a grant from 52 Lives School of Kindness - and were successful! We received the funds in January 2022, which meant that we were able to buy all of the resources needed to make the jars.

The Wellbeing Champions worked hard to think of different 'Acts of Kindness' to go into the jars and then all worked together to create seventeen of them - one for every class. These are now being used - an 'Act of Kindness' is chosen from the jar each day and everyone in the class - including adults - has to carry out that kind act.

Random Acts of Kindness Day

The team helped to run a Random Acts of Kindness day in school during the summer term. They all worked together to provide drinks of juice to every class during their morning break. At lunchtime we held a joke competition on the playgrund - lots of children took part and it made lunchtime great fun.

2020/21

Last year, as part of our Mentally Healthy Schools training, we worked alongside Place2be and Rachel Mackenzie, an olympic Thai boxing champion who works for the Youth Sport Trust.  Rachel worked with a small group of year 5 and 6 to train them as Mental Health Champions.  

Before lockdown, they ran a lunchtime club, with the help of some staff Mental Health First Aiders, with other children in school.  The club encouraged the chidlren to get physiclly and mentally active and work together in teams.   

This year, whilst our Covid risk assessment is in place, we will be looking for different ways to work with our Mental Health Champions until they are allowed to work with children from other year groups.