Building resilience has been high on the agenda at Kingsbury Green Academy with educational therapists, Building Resilience in Young Minds, holding special workshops for pupils in Years 9 and 10.
The workshops taught pupils, who are at a crucial stage in their education, about teamwork, handling stress and how to protect your mental health. In total, around 400 pupils took part in classes including sound therapy, art therapy, boxing, basketball, and expression and movement.
Year 9 pupil Lexi took part in the workshop and learnt techniques to cope in stressful situations. She explained, “I found the sound therapy really relaxing as we listened to different sounds from Tibetan music bowls. School is a big stress for all of us, especially as we’re going into Year 10 and we also have our assessments coming up, as well as things we do outside of school like shows. I feel more prepared now I’ve done the workshop.”
Fellow pupil Flo added, “Knowing what to do has really helped. In the boxing session we learnt about how to focus our minds and concentrate on our breathing in potentially stressful situations. We were also shown tapping techniques to help us calm too, which I use lots.”
Learning about the power of breathing properly was a key aspect for Charlotte, also in Year 9. She said, “When you get uptight your breath gets heavy so you need to slow down. In art therapy we were learning about box breathing and drawing whilst focussing on breathing slowly.”
Assistant Headteacher Claire Richardson added, “As a school we recognise that we’re in a mental health crisis and that we need to provide our pupils with the tools for the future so that they know how to self-regulate and have the resilience to deal with any issues that they will face.
“These workshops formed part of a larger focus on mental health across the school. We recently held a parents’ information evening to equip parents and carers with the knowledge and strategies they need to best support their children, including learning about how the teenage brain is different to an adult’s. School staff have also taken part in very similar resilience and mental health workshops to recognise and help colleagues deal with the inherent challenges of teaching.”
Kingbury Green Academy is part of the Ascend Learning Trust. For more information visit www.kingsburygreenacademy.com.