From the 21st to 25th of January, we organised a ‘Wellness Week’ in school. During this week, all classes made an extra effort to include activities which promote positive mental health and well-being. These activities included daily meditation, nature walks, mindful eating, mindful colouring and lots of discussions about our emotions and how to deal with them.
Jen, one of our support teachers, has just completed a course in children’s yoga and kindly offered to take each class for a yoga session. This was a huge hit with all the children.
We also had lots of parent volunteers who came to give talks on the areas of wellness that they specialise in.
Our first visit was from Claire, who works with essential oils and teaches people how to use them to support their emotional and physical health. Geraldine is in her 2nd year of Masters at UCD, studying Mindfulness Based Interventions, at the School of Psychology and she came in to do a ‘Mindfullness’ talk with both the senior classes and the junior classes.
Sally is a nutritionist and she came in to talk to some of the classes about the importance of food for keeping us healthy and giving us energy.
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Michal has been practising Tibetan Buddhism for last 13 years and he came in to share his knowledge on the benefits of meditation.
Sara is a psychologist and she came in to talk to the junior and seniors infants about worries and how to deal with them.
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And finally, Mischa and Caroline visited 2nd class to work on a project called ‘Song of our School’. This project included a walk around school in which the children were encouraged to stop and listen to all the sounds around them. They are now in the process of using these sounds to come up with a unique composition.