By Miss Munro-Hall, Head of PSHCEE

In Year 9, students are offered the opportunity to join the Year 9 Leadership Programme. The idea behind the programme is that each pupil who takes on one of these roles comes up with her own ideas to do something meaningful around the school – to make a real and tangible difference. In 2021-22, Year 9 Leadership roles include Wellbeing, Humanitarian, Interfaith, Social Affairs and Science Publication Leads.

Over the academic year, our Wellbeing Leads participated in regular Wellbeing meetings and attended a course to become Mental Health ambassadors for the school. Their responsibilities included exploring, discussing and putting into action  responses to Wellbeing issues, using findings from pupil voice and their own research. The group also planned and organised events to mark key national awareness days and weeks including helping with assemblies and events.

For Anti Bullying Week last November, the Year 9s combined with the outgoing Year 10 Wellbeing Reps to create one huge jigsaw puzzle, where each pupil wrote their own pledge against bullying on a single puzzle piece. All pieces were brought together to make one amazing school puzzle displayed in the atrium.

The 2020-21 Leads had a particularly tricky year to negotiate with Covid restrictions and lockdowns. However, they carried out their roles fantastically, even when we were all at home in the spring term, for example making their own videos to raise awareness of Children’s Mental Health Week in February.

They followed this up in May with a brilliant assembly for Mental Health Awareness Week, combining excellent advice and their own initiatives, including “planting a tulip and seeding the conversation” and deciding to run an ‘Anonymous Tulip Seeds Delivery Service’ this year for the whole school to raise money for ‘Mind.’ Read more on this here.

As our Year 9 (now Year 10) Wellbeing Leaders come to the end of their tenure, we asked the group about their year as Leads and any tips they could share for next year’s new Leaders:

Eliza H, Year 10

“I signed up to be a wellbeing lead as I felt like wellbeing was something that I was passionate about and something I cared about, and I wanted to be able to come up with ideas to help others in the year groups. During the year we all contributed to an assembly which we presented to the school, talking about different things, and I talked about things I did to help my wellbeing. The most challenging thing was organising the assembly as everyone was trying to co-operate with each other, but in the end it was good. As a leader I figured out that my skills can be used outside school, and I learnt different leadership skills such as using my voice.

My advice for next year’s leads is to be organised and work together!”

Tilda J, Year 10

“I signed up to be a Wellbeing Lead so that I could help with the school’s wellbeing, mental health activities and resources, and over the year we met up on several occasions to help organise assemblies and charity fundraisers/events (including organising Mental Health Awareness Week!). I was surprised how long it took me to research, put together and send the mental health helpline powerpoints. However, it was great seeing them being sent to the whole school and also rewarding finding out just how much help is available and hopefully they will prove useful in the future too. The most challenging part was balancing the meetings and extra-curricular commitments, but I soon figured out how to attend both. Being a leader helped teach me that I much prefer taking productive action and providing solutions than just talking over problems. I definitely apply that information to my general life now.

My main tip for next year’s leads is to really use the opportunity to implement any change you want to see – this is your chance, take it! “

Avi S, Year 10

“I signed up to be a wellbeing lead as I am interested in looking after myself and wanted to help others in the school community who may have needed some extra TLC during the Covid disruption. We delivered assemblies on mental health and wellbeing, we also delivered tulip seeds to the school customers, we also ran activities in wellbeing week for all the school years. The most challenging piece was trying to organise assemblies with lots of other people. Over the year, I learnt that I am good at organising a team, bringing people together and keeping the spirits up! I also learnt how to work with different personalities, which could be be quite difficult sometimes, but is something I can use in the future and outside of school too. My top tip for next year’s Leads would be to ask them to brainstorm different ways of educating the school on new wellness ideas. I really enjoyed being a Wellbeing Lead and I hope that the new ones will enjoy it just as much as I did!”

The Wellbeing Reps this year have been outstanding; for them to navigate promoting mental health and wellbeing through such a difficult and poignant year has been really inspiring.

They all took on the role with such enthusiasm and with the real hope that they could raise awareness throughout the school; which they definitely have done! From their unique Tulip seed delivery service to their passionate assemblies! Well done, to a fantastic team!