Children’s Mental Health Week and Dress to Express Worship
Today was our special ‘ Dress to Express’ Worship to celebrate Children’s Mental Health Week. The theme of Dress to Express this year is ‘Know Yourself and Grow Yourself’. Children's emotional well-being is just as important as their physical health. Good mental health helps them develop the resilience to cope with whatever life throws at them and grow into well-rounded, healthy adults Our Heads and Deputies led the worship this week and started by telling everyone how they express themselves and they asked us all how we express ourself best. We heard that some children express themselves through playing football or other sports, dancing, listening to music and art etc. Mrs Ham showed us photos of how she likes to support her mental health through walking up huge fells with her dogs and her family. We then watched a clip from Inside Out the movie when Riley looked at various memories. We met sadness, joy, fear, disgust and anger. The children and Mrs Ham then acted out an emotion and the rest of the children had to guess what it was. We all feel different emotions but these affect our mental health. 5 Ways to Well-being are a great way to support our mental well-being such as: being physically active, connecting with others, learning new skills, giving to others and paying attention to the present moment (mindfulness). A question that the children presented asked ‘ How well do we really know ourselves?’ The children really enjoyed watching the clips and guessing the emotions that the characters were showing. The children shared when they too had experienced the emotions and how it made them feel. In another clip, we learnt about a boy named Malaki who felt like he was bad at everything he tried. Malaki was encouraged to ‘level up’ by his friends and people around him who cared for him. He was challenged to try a new skill which included skiing and ballet and tried his best with both. Although he wasn’t great at ballet he was awarded recognition for his determination and resilience. The children were asked what they had learnt from the video and the responses were: to keep going even if you aren’t the best, to not fall at the first hurdle and you can do anything that you set your mind to. We are all unique and special and God gave us many talents, some of yet we might not have discovered. We should let our light shine for all the world to see. We said our special Year of Prayer about our talents again and thanked God for the talents we have and the ones we are yet to discover. Our Heads and Deputies then finished with a special prayer for Children's Mental Health Week. To end our Worship we had the pleasure in listening to Renee, Molly, Alice and Lyla who read their acrostic poems ‘ Being Me’ and we sand 'Shine from the Inside Out' with our best singing voices and actions. What a wonderful way to start our day and a great end our Children's Mental Health Week, although we know that we need to focus on our mental health and wellbeing every day, not just this week.
Worship with Rev. Ben
Today, we had worship with Rev. Ben, which began with a fun yet challenging relay-style game where we had to balance ping pong balls on a paper plate while moving carefully across the hall. Rev. Ben explained that, just like in the game, life can sometimes feel unsteady or difficult, especially when we are upset or facing challenges. To help us reflect on this, Rev. Ben showed a clip about what Jesus did when he was feeling deeply sad the night before his death. The video illustrated how Jesus turned to God in prayer, seeking strength and comfort during his time of sorrow. Rev. Ben explained that, just like Jesus, we can share our worries and struggles with God, knowing that He listens and understands, and can help us through even the toughest times. He reminded us that no matter how we feel, we are never alone—God is always there to support and guide us.
Year 4 - RE with Rev Ben: Prayer
One of the key experiences in the current Year 4 RE unit is to learn from a Christian visitor about what Christians believe and how this is revealed in the way they pray. Rev Ben loves coming into school to explore faith with the children, and the children, in return, always offer their own insights. This lesson offered a fantastic opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas, and we fully encourage respectful discussion of different worldviews in RE. The children loved exploring Christian belief through song, liturgy and 5 finger prayers. Thank you, Rev Ben.
Year 1 Class Worship- Children’s Mental Health Week
Today in class worship, we engaged with the Blackburn with Darwen Children’s Mental Health Presentation on the theme of ‘Know Yourself and Grow Yourself.’ We started by discussing what mental health is. Olivia said that mental health is looking after yourself on the inside, Alessia said that it is having a happy heart and mind and Callie said that it’s about how you feel. We then thought about the following question, ‘What are the signs that our mental health is good?’ We recognised that our mental health is good when we are feeling happy, we can can concentrate and enjoy lots of things in our lives. Isabella said that this could be enjoying spending time with our family, Alayna said that this could be enjoying spending time with our siblings, Samuel said this could be enjoying going to places such as the play centre and Vienna said this could be enjoying playing with our friends or having some alone time to practise a skill or talent. We learnt that to have good mental health, we must recognise when we are feeling negative feelings such as sadness and anger so that we can support and comfort ourselves by doing something that we enjoy. We also learnt that if a feeling is becoming too big to manage or cope with and it is stopping us from sleeping, having fun or not being able to concentrate then we must seek support from someone that we trust. The children decided that they would ask the support of their mummy, daddy, other family members or teachers at school. To end our worship, we had some beautiful prayers.
Year 6 Worship - Children’s Mental Health Week
This week is Children’s Mental Health Week and this was our focus during class worship. The children listened to a live stream that gave strategies and advice for improving our mental health, for example that worry isn’t actually a bad thing, as long as we deal with it in a positive and healthy way. That dodging our worries doesn’t help us and that we should stop and think about our feelings and connect with others. We heard about the experience of other people around the world, for example refugees from the Ukraine and children living in Ghana. An important message we took away from listening to these individuals, was the importance of hope.
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Children's Mental Health Week Launch Worship & YOP- Talents
This morning Mrs Ham launched our Children's Mental Health Week theme of 'Know yourself, Grow Yourself'. We started by looking at our school vision that says 'Achieving great things through learning and growing together'. We thought about what the growing together means and we had some super suggestions such as growing emotionally and mentally, getting better at things and not giving up when we find things hard. We then looked at our emotions and how they control our brain, just like in the film Inside Out. We thought about the times when our brain tells us that we aren't good at things and we had some great examples such as in acro when doing cartwheels, in maths or art and when we do things for the first time. We thought of ways to challenge our brains and help ourselves grow by doing things that we enjoy such as listening to music, taking part in sports or other hobbies, showing courage to try new things etc. We then focused on our Year of Prayer for this week which is thanking God for our talents. We shared our talents and thought about ways we could express our talents this week and especially on our dress to express day on Friday. We reflected on how we should shine from the inside out and always respect each other's God given talents and the way we like to express ourselves. We discussed that if we laugh at the way someone likes to express themselves then that might hurt their feelings and they will feel sad and won't want to express themselves that way again. We said a lovely prayer thanking God for our talents and how we promise to share them with others and respect others' talents. We finished with singing one of our favourite songs 'Shine from the inside out' which reminds us that God knows us, loves us and fills us with talents that we need show to everyone we meet.
Year 6 Class Worship
Year 6’s class worship this week was led by our members of the Wow Group. They did a fantastic job of leading a discussion around the government’s recent decision to promote more educational content on social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok. The class talked about the influence that social media can have on us, both positive and negative.
Worship with Rev. Matt
This morning’s worship with Rev. Matt focused on the theme of perseverance. It began with a challenge where the children had to work together to keep an inflatable in the air without letting it touch the ground. As the game went on, they quickly realised that success required teamwork, determination and persistence. Following the challenge, Rev. Matt introduced a parable from the Bible—the story of the unjust judge. He explained how the woman in the story kept returning to the judge, refusing to give up until she received justice. This demonstrated the power of persistence, showing that when we truly believe in something, we must keep trying and not lose heart. Rev. Matt linked this to prayer, reminding the children that when we speak to God, we should be just as persistent. The children then took a moment for reflection, considering the question: What is something you could pray for this week? They were encouraged to think about personal challenges, hopes for others or things happening in the world that they could bring to God in prayer. To conclude, Rev. Matt left the children with a powerful message: when we knock on God’s door through prayer, He will answer. This message reinforced the importance of faith, patience and perseverance in our relationship with God.
Reception Worship with WOW group
Wow group led our class worship this week and talked to Reception about how we can be safe when watching online videos. We talked about the Christian value of courage as we need to be brave to speak up if we see something that makes us feel worried or sad. We talked about the things we watch that make us feel happy and safe and must always check with a grown up. Thank you to Josh, Sofia and Ruby for leading so brilliantly.
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Reception: Muddy Monday
Today our Reception children braved the cold and went outside for an observational walk to Jack Keys. We focused on spirituality this week and really focussed on what we could see, hear and smell. We stopped and looked around at all of God's beautiful creations. It was lovely to take a moment to really focus on what is all around us. We had a wonderful afternoon and we were really impressed with the children's resilience with the weather and the amount of walking we did.
Holocaust Memorial Day Worship
Our first collective worship of the week had a serious and somber tone as we held in our thoughts and prayers all of the Jews who suffered in the Holocaust. We looked out of our spirituality windows to learn how the Nazis did not show love to their Jewish neighbours like God commanded but instead treated them really badly during World War II. We watched a BBC interview with a Jewish survivor, who described some of the personal tragedies he faced at the young age of 6 when his family sent him away to save his life from the Nazi regime. He shared how he travelled on the Kindertransport and a British family showed him love and compassion and became the light in the dark. Through our spirituality mirrors we were able to reflect on how hearing of these events made us feel, and how the Jews must have felt back then. Finally, through our spirituality doors we learned of the many survivors who have worked tirelessly to make people aware of the devastation that was caused so that it would never happen again. We reflected on how we should always love our neighbours regardless of whether they look like you, pray like you, speak like you or think like you and stand up to anyone who is being mean to others.
Wellbeing Warriors Badge Design Meeting
Today our Wellbeing Warriors had a working lunch, so that we could prepare for the WOW design a badge competition. The children will be launching this in Celebration Worship tomorrow. This years theme is ‘Walk with Joy’ and every child in school will get to design their very own badge for the competition. We want them to be big, bold and colourful. Diversity and originality are key to stand out from the crowd. WOW badges are only 3cm, so simple designs without small details will work best. The Wellbeing Warriors can’t wait to receive and judge the entries, so let’s get cracking!