PUBLISHED 15 January 2021
by Mrs F Marland – Assistant Head (Staff and Student Development)
The start of the year always feels like the perfect occasion to spend time thinking about oneself and in the midst of so much uncertainty in the World, as a school, we felt the importance for staff to spend a proportion of time on the recent INSET day ‘checking in’ with their own mental health and wellbeing. Fortunately, we were able to secure a session with the highly acclaimed speaker, Jon Bockelmann-Evans who delivered a virtual session to staff to help us all understand how changes to our emotional health can affect us, providing us with numerous practical exercises to help us navigate our emotions through this time of uncertainty.
We hope to continue with our plans for Jon to provide a similar session to our A Level students, equipping them with additional coping strategies to maintain focus, discipline and balance whilst feeling the uncertainty that comes naturally with the added worries and disruption of Sixth Form life during a pandemic.
To strengthen our commitment further, Jon’s colleagues Kate Cook presented a virtual session to the AKS Community last night. This session was aimed at students, staff and parents and was titled ‘The Happiness Factor’. The session was a truly upbeat and inspiring session, with Kate working through the 6 main areas that contribute to our happiness: nutrition, movement, modelling, resilience, connection and attitude. She looked at and made us all think about the small changes we can do in our lives to make a positive difference.
If you missed the session and would like to be emailed the recording, please do email me - faye.marland@akslytham.com