Happiness workshops for Melrose
PUPILS at Melrose School have been taking part in happiness workshops to equip them with knowledge and skills to be in charge of their own wellbeing.
The young people and their teachers have been introduced to a range of positive psychology topics such as resilience, personal responsibility, growth mindsets, kindness, mindfulness and gratitude.
Melrose has joined a not-for-profit initiative called ‘The Art of Brilliance’ which aims to nurture people into aspiring to be their best selves.
Will Hussey from the training programme said that stressful episodes are inevitable in life, so the idea is to arm pupils and staff with the knowledge and strategies they need to deal with it.
‘Bad things sometimes happen and we sometimes all feel a little bit negative, and our message is that it’s OK to be not OK, and we acknowledge that sometimes life has its ups and downs, but just because you’re down you don’t have to stay down, so it’s looking at the way we can get back to being the 100% version of ourselves.’
The golden thread in the initiative is that students are challenged to design their own 10-point plan to improve happiness and learning, so the culture is changed from the inside out.
Year 6 teacher Sarah Morris said mental wellbeing impacted positively on learning, and also leaked out to the wider community.
‘People with a positive attitude will achieve more, whether that’s academically or in sport or emotionally. If you’re feeling positive you’ll flourish in every avenue of your life and you can’t go wrong.
‘School is a perfect place to start spreading it and the children can go home and remind their parents how to be positive.’
Tilly Hilgeland Wilkins, 10, agreed it was important to be confident, happy, and have a positive outlook of life.
‘We’ve been showing Will all of the songs we wrote and the posters which we put a lot of work into, and it was very rewarding.
‘I learnt that you should say ‘yes’ to Mondays, and I learnt ways to feel really positive.’
Lilly-Ella O’Brien, 10, had risen to the challenge and felt excited and inspired by the sessions.
‘Will has been a great help to the school, he’s a great speaker and a great role-model, we’ve all been looking forward to hearing from him, it’s something that we’ve really wanted to do each day.
‘It’s very important to be positive because otherwise you could live a sad life.’
