With children’s mental health and happiness a priority in the primary classrooms, each class teacher at Queen’s College makes sure they know how the children in the group are feeling so that they know if they are ever worried or struggling.
Staff make sure they find a moment to regularly interact with each child to gauge their feelings. Play fosters creativity, collaboration and problem solving, all of which are important for good mental health. Children have plenty of opportunities for play activities, role play or team building games to secure positive class relationships.
Once the children are used to expressing their emotions, they then feel safe and natural expressing how they feel!
Moving on from a negative experience and celebrating positive ones is part of daily routines in the primary classrooms. The children help each other to do this by being a “good friend” or by knowing who might be able to help.
Taking learning outside and making it as practical as possible also helps to create a sense of wellbeing. Every class ensures that moments of calm and reflection are woven into the school day through simple activities such as relaxation, quiet music, artwork and story time.
Sharing stories encourages sympathy, empathy and kindness which are then discussed in order to model the traits we would like our children to demonstrate in school.
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