Dear Parents and Carers, I hope that you are all keeping well during these challenging times. At school we have always promoted the importance of well-being and looking after your mental health. Now more than ever we want to help children and families with this as much as we can. I’ve attached a 14 day Coronavirus home challenge sheet that you could use with your child as away to include mindful activities into your day. I’ve also attached links to two child friendly books that help explain lockdown and explore the feelings around it. Miss Ridley our children’s counsellor has asked me to mention that she is supporting emotional wellbeing and mental health via telephone appointments, and if any parents feel their children would benefit from this please email the office. While We Can’t Hug https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story/dp/0571365590           Stuck Inside https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stuck-Inside-explain-lockdown-children-ebook/dp/B087MY2BQ5             And a wellbeing 14 day challenge Coronavirus home challenge 4      ...

Good Morning Wellfield family, I hope you are all doing well, and continuing to have lots of fun at home. Up until now, the adults at school have been looking after some children of key workers, whilst the rest of you have stayed safe at home. In school, we are following the guidance from the government about what we need to do to keep our school community safe. . I know that this is a confusing and difficult time, whether you are one of the children who have been back in school with us, or not. There have been lots of changes lately, and change is something that we all find difficult to cope with. It’s important that you all know, regardless of whether you have returned to us, you haven’t been forgotten, and you are missed greatly every day. Some of you may be feeling a little (or a lot) anxious about what is going on, and so it is important that you’re speaking to your adults at home about this as much as possible. I am also happy to give any of you a call for a chat and to check in with how you’re doing and feeling. If you would like to do this, please ask your adults to email the school office FAO Miss Ridley to let me know, and I will give you a call as soon as possible. Please also make use of the activities I’m posting, they will help. I’ve put together a social story for you all, which you can find below. A social story is simply information specific to you, and anything that may be a source of difficulty, with the aim to provide better understanding. I’m hopeful that it will provide some reassurance for now. Thinking of you all, Miss Ridley   Returning to School Social Story I have been staying at home and learning there for a little while, whilst school was closed. School has been closed to keep my friends and I safe. The government is in charge and decides when it is safe for my friends and I to go back to school which will be in September. When I go back to school, I might be in a different year group, so some things will be different, and some things will be the same The same school building will be there. The same adults from school will be there. The same children will be there. I will know or have seen everybody that is in school.   What will be different? I might not be with the same adults in class as I will have moved up to the next year group. That is okay....

Dear Wellfield family, I hope you’re all doing well, and are remembering to enjoy the fun stuff, whilst working your brains out at home. I noticed a post on one of my favourite sites that I use for emotional and social support, and thought it would be brilliant for all of you. I love using the ELSA site for lots of fun activities to help us with our emotions, and thought it might be a good idea to point you all in this direction too. There are some brilliant options that you would have to purchase, but there are tonnes of free activities to choose from too. I thoroughly enjoy arts and crafts, as many of you will know, and find that it really helps us when opening up and talking about our feelings. I highly suggest you give it a go with your families at home. Sharing our feelings and emotions with those closer to us often makes us feel better in understanding we aren’t alone, that everybody experiences the same emotions that we do- and it’s okay to feel them. In my last post I wrote about mindfulness activities, and within that I linked an activity using jars. I don’t know about you, but I have tonnes of jars lying around the house, and up-cycling them for different activities is a brilliant idea. If you don’t have any lying around, don’t worry, you could print out the worksheets, or just simply draw your own. You can find the link to download all of the ideas here, but I’ve also attached my favourites below. Hope you all have the most wonderful weekend with loved ones, Miss Ridley          ...

Dear Wellfield family, I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend and are looking forward to some sunshine coming along this week and brightening all of our days. The sun is brilliant for our wellbeing, so if you can, and where possible try to get out into it as much as possible (don’t forget your sun lotion). Exposure to sunlight increases the release of serotonin, a chemical in our body that boosts our mood and helps us to feel calm. I know that although we’re having lots of fun, and enjoying spending time at home with our loved ones, it can also be difficult at times. Spending lots and lots of time with the same people, and not really being able to go anywhere else can be tricky for us all, and create some big feelings. If you find that you’re getting a little more cross, a little more quickly; or getting a little more worried, a little more often, then you need to know that it’s okay to feel that way. We all get cross, we all worry, we all feel these things at some point, so it’s important that you know you’re not alone, and that what you’re feeling is okay. When your emotions are interrupting the normal day to day things that we usually enjoy, that’s when we need to look at how you can take control of them again. This means that if you’re not able to stop being angry, or if your anger is causing you to make some not so positive choices, we need to think about how you can regain control again. If you find that your worries are taking over, and you’re thinking about them too much, even when you’re doing something you usually really enjoy, we need to think about how you can regain control of that. This is the same for any emotion you’re feeling right now, if it is getting too big of an emotion, you need to take charge. We are in control of our bodies, and what we think in our head affects how our body feels, for example when we’re worrying we might get a tummy ache, a headache or feel a little bit sick- amongst other not so nice feelings. So if we can change our way of thinking, we can change the way our body feels, and gain control over those feelings that are getting a little too big. Over the next few posts I’m going to talk about ways that we can take control of our big feelings, and that starts with relaxation. There are countless ways of practising relaxation, but the one which you’ll be familiar with if you’ve worked with...