Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
‘Growing Together’ – Children’s Mental Health Week
11 February 2022
At EHS we recognise how important it is that children know they need to be both physically and mentally healthy. In line with Children’s Mental Health Week, in assembly on Tuesday, Westbourne children, in our Early Years setting, shared the story ‘Have You Filled a Bucket Today?’ This involved talking about feelings and being happy.
The story encourages positive behaviour by using the concept of an invisible bucket to show children how easy and rewarding it is to express kindness, appreciation and love by ‘filling buckets’. Examples of this positive behaviour include saying I love you, asking a friend to play, helping a friend that is sad, smiling at a grown up and asking how they are.
It also mentions ‘bucket dipping’, which is when negative behaviour takes out some of the good feeling in the bucket. This could be if something unkind was said to someone else or if you hurt someone. The idea is that you take time to think about filling your bucket throughout each day.
Before hearing the story girls made suggestions of how to fill a bucket, which included using fish, sand, water, shells and cement. After the story these ideas changed to hugging a friend, telling Mummy I love her, giving Grandad a hug, playing with someone who hasn’t got a friend and picking a friend up if they fall over.
In Prep, with the older girls, this theme was followed by our Year 6 Pastoral mentors who shared ideas of self-kindness with everyone in Years 1 – 6. These included tips to encourage everyone to be the best version of themselves.
