World Mental Health Day
Yesterday was World Mental Health Day. At The Royal Ballet School, we recognise what an immense responsibility we have to safeguard the welfare of our students and staff. We’re proud of the extensive mental health provision we offer all year round, which is an integral part of our holistic programme, but we also love arranging special one-off activities around World Mental Health Day to help open up the dialogue around mental health, and to remind our students and staff that we’re a soft place to land if they ever need support.
This year’s theme was ‘Make Mental Health and Well-Being for All a Global Priority’. In a time of global instability, particularly after the pandemic, this theme gives us an opportunity to think about how we can all re-kindle our efforts to make the world a better place for everyone.
At Upper School and White Lodge, we hosted a series of fun activities for students and staff with an emphasis on the five ways to wellbeing: to connect, be active, take notice, keep learning, and to give.
1. to connect — students enjoyed using quirky conversation starters to get to know one another better, and wrote postcards to local care home residents through the charity Postcards for Kindness.
We enjoyed the conversation starters. We found out each other’s family traditions and weirdest dreams. It was really good.
Amelie and Anna
2. be active — students loved the keepie-uppie competition and staff are looking forward to this week’s lunchtime walks.
It’s fun to do something different at lunch. I want to beat my brother’s 70 keepie-uppies.
Eva
3. take notice — any chance to eat sweets is a winner. Students were delighted to try mindful eating.
I normally chew a sweet straight away but I tried mindful eating and sucked it slowly today. I noticed it was sweet but sour and sherbety inside.
Euan
4. keep learning — there were lots of activities to encourage learning, like Rubik’s cubes, discovering unusual phrases from around the world, and doing spot the difference puzzles.
When I learned to do the Rubik’s cube, it gave me happiness.
Max
5. to give — students were encouraged to donate clothes or items to charity and have already started to make pledges for how they can give more of their time to the local care home that received their postcards.
This has been good. It’s been calming and a cool place to hang out.
Scarlett and Isabella
We also encouraged students and staff to accessorise their uniform with something yellow to say #HelloYellow as part of Young Mind’s campaign to show young people that how they feel matters, and help create a future where all young people get the mental health support they need, when they need it, no matter what.
