NORTH Woodvale Primary School held its annual ‘grow your mind day’ last term to celebrate positive mental health.
Year 2 teacher Rachael Robertson is the school’s positive education team leader and said it had been a focus in its curriculum over the past five years.
“Positive education derives from Martin Seligman’s positive psychology approach to education, focusing on a proactive rather than reactive approach to mental health,” she said.
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READ NOW“Our school formed a positive education committee four years ago when we heard the alarming statistics on mental health amongst children.
“After hearing the success of ‘grow your mind day’ at Geelong Grammar, we decided to design our own.”
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Mrs Robertson said on March 24 students rotated around four activities designed to challenge and help them grow as individuals.
“Activities included STEM challenges where students had to work collaboratively to solve problems, sustainable planting, challenging origami, craft activities creating bees to align with our school motto ‘think happy, be happy’ and shooting stars focusing on hopes and dreams,” she said.
“Parents were invited to attend and participate with their child and we had an overwhelming response this year as parents note the importance of this incredible initiative.
“Food trucks were available for lunch, encouraging students to try new and different food.”
Mrs Robertson said the Perth Wildcats did a resilience presentation and there was a dunking machine, face-painting and a petting zoo.
“Games such as quoits, giant jenga and giant connect 4 were designed to promote perseverance and team-building,” she said.