Wellbeing Champions

The Wellbeing Champions are a team of children who applied for the role because they want to help provide a safe and supportive environment for everyone in school.

They help to educate their peers, run campaigns against bullying and promote positive mental health through a variety of events across the year. Wellbeing Champions have received training so that they are clear about their role. They do not directly intervene intervene in any incidents, but are knowledable about what they can do to help.

Some of the ways in which they can be help by being an 'Upstander': 

• Tell an adult if they see something happening
• If they are friends with someone who is displaying bullying behaviour, they could ask them not to do it
• Check in with someone who has experienced bullying behaviour or unkindness 
• Encourage the person experiencing this kind of behaviour to speak to a trusted adult
• Be a friend to someone experiencing bullying behaviour
• If they see someone sitting on the 'Buddy Bench', they can have a chat with them or find someone for them to play with

Wellbeing Champions wear a badge and also an armband so that they are easily identified, even on the playground. Wellbeing Champions have been introduced to the other children during assemblies and their role has been explained.

What is bullying?

Anti-Bullying Week - 11th - 15th November 2024

The Wellbeing Champions kicked off the week by delivering a fantastic assembly to the whole school all around this year's theme - 'Choose Respect'. They also reminded everyone of the definition of bullying - and what bullying behaviour can look like, as well as reminding everyone who they can speak to in school if they see or experience this kind of behaviour. 

2023/24

We have recruited new Wellbeing Champions and now have four members from Year 4 as well as those from Years 5 and 6.  They will  be working hard on different campaigns to earn  Badges from The Diana Trust as part of our anti-bullying work in school. 

Wellbeing Day - 28th June 2024

We had a fantastic time on our Wellbeing Day. The Wellbeing Champions got together and planned a range of activities for children and staff to enjoy across the day.

Children came prepared with a funny joke ready for 'Drop Everything and Laugh'. Throughout the day staff would unexpectedly stop everything and make time for a joke or two. We definitely enjoyed hearing so much laughter - we couldn't walk through school without being stopped so that someone could share their joke.

Children joined in with our lunchtime dance and yoga sessions in the hall and on the playground and they definitely enjoyed their surprise treat of an ice-pop each - even though the sunny weather disappeared for the day! 

We also had an 'Appreciation Station', to help spread kindness and therefore improve wellbeing, where they wrote notes for people to say why they are thankful for them.

As part of the day, the Wellbeing Champions decided they really wanted to be able to spread kindness and improve the wellbeing of people in the wider community by providing items (food and toiletries) for the local food bank. Our amazing families donated items so that we could do so, and the local food bank were extremely grateful when they collected everything.

KS1 Buddy Bench - June 2024

As you know, we have been fundraising again this year so that we can buy a Buddy Bench for our younger children. Thanks to the generosity of our parents and carers, we raised enough to be able to buy the bench, and it was fitted on the KS1 playground over the half term holiday. Our children have already been making good use of it and really enjoy sitting and having a chat together.           

A buddy bench is a bench which children  can sit on if they ever feel sad, upset, worried or perhaps just a little bit lonely. If a child sits on the bench, it shows the Wellbeing Champions, staff and all of the other children that they are in need of a friend or a 'buddy'. 

Buddy benches are a great way for children to make new friends if they don't have the confidence, are shy or suffer from social anxiety. It also helps children express their emotions and help other children understand how they are feeling. As well as promoting friendship, buddy benches promotes inclusion and also help children to understand the feelings of others and encourages them to be kind and caring towards other people.

Mental Health Awareness Week - May 2024

Our Wellbeing Champions launched Mental Helath Awareness week on Monday by delivering an assembly to KS1 and 2 classes.

Children across school have been learning how we all have mental health and that is about our feelings and emotions. They have been completing activities in class to help them learn more about it and think about how they can look after their own mental health - maybe by having a bath, listening to some music or reading a good book.

They have also learned how to tell someone that they have something important to share and how to be a good listener if someone does speak to them. They know to get an adult to help if they need to.

Lunchtime Wellbeing Club

The lunchtime Wellbeing  Club runs every Wednesday across KS1 and KS2 lunchtimes. Our Wellbeing Champions help to run it. They encourage children to join in - and also take part themselves. Each week we try to have different activities that help us to relax and hopefully improve our wellbeing! Examples of activities we  will be doing:

• board games
• gratitude rainbows
• mindfulness colouring
• friendship bracelets
• joke station

The Diana Trust 'Wellbeing Badge' campaign 

Children's Mental Health Week - February 2024

Our Wellbeing Champions delivered an assembly to the other classes all around this year's theme - 'My Voice Matters'. 

My Voice Matters is about empowering children and young people by providing them with the tools they need to express themselves. To support with this, the children have been completing different activities across the week, from mindful colouring to work around how they can make their voice heard.

We also encouraged students and staff to express themselves through their clothing on Friday 9th February. We asked children and staff to donate £1 on this day to help us raise money to buy a Buddy Bench for our KS1 playground - and managed to raise an amazing £261.02!! We will continue to fundraise to raise the remaining amount needed for the Buddy Bench.

Diana Award Anti-Bullying Ambassador Training - January 2024

• Supporting with the Wellbeing lunch club
• Planning and helping to deliver activities during Feel Good Friday’,
• Delivering assemblies and lessons in classes around what bullying behaviour looks like and who can help
• Applying for a grant and then making Kindness Jars for each class
• Fundraising to be able to buy our Buddy Bench

Anti-Bullying Week, November 2023

To launch Anti-Bullying Week, our Wellbeing Champions delivered an assembly to children in KS1 and KS2. The theme this year was 'Make A Noise About Bullying'. The week kicked off with Odd Socks Day on Monday 13th November, where adults and children wore odd socks to celebrate what makes us all unique.

Children completed different activities across the week to encourage them to consider what bullying means to us, how banter (joking) can turn into something more hurtful, and what we can do to stop bullying in our school.

2022/23

This year we have a mixture of old and new Wellbeing Champions. Our new Champions applied for the role and were chosen for their desire to help others. 

Part of their role is to promote our Anti-Bullying policy across the school. They do this by supporting the other children to have fun and play in the playground – helping with games and activities to encourage inclusion and positive interaction. They are also available to find help for children who may be experiencing bullying behaviours.

Our Wellbeing Champions also promote wellbeing messages and events across the school.

Haveley Hey's Anti-Bullying Motto

The Wellbeing Champions/Anti-Bullying Ambassadors are working on their first Anti-Bullying Campaign to earn their Wellbeing Badge. Part of their campaign was to think of an anti-bullying motto for school. As we know, words can be very powerful so we wanted to create a motto that can help to make a change in Haveley Hey.

The team thought carefully, completed some research and came up with lots of ideas. After taking a vote they decided that our motto should be 'Don't Be a Zero, Be a Hero! Take a Stand Against Bullying!'

The team then  created posters and shared our motto in a whole school assembly.

FEEL GOOD FRIDAY!!

As part of our first Anti-Bullying Campaign (to earn the Wellbeing Badge), the Wellbeing Champions/Anti-Bullying Ambassadors  helped to organise and run 'Feel Good Friday' on Friday 16th June 2023.  They spoke to the school about the day, and why we were doing it, during a whole school assembly.

This day fits into our anti-bullying work as when people are feeling good and making an effort to be kind to others, it is less likely that incidents of bullying or unkind behaviour will happen.

The day consisted of :

• Yoga sessions for children and staff
• A 'Joke Station' at lunch time where the children came to tell (and listen to) lots of hilarious jokes
• A 'Compliments Station' where the children wrote compliments for each other and pinned them to a notice board for everyone to read
• 'Drop Everything and Dance' sessions in classes throughout the day

Local Community Visit

This June we visited Village 135, part of Wythenshawe Community Housing Group. The Wellbeing Champions/Anti-Bullying Ambassadors visited some of the residents in the 'Bistro' area of the building. 

They spoke to residents about all of the work we have been doing in school around promoting kindness and lanti-bullying work. Despite feeling a little nervous they did a great job and the residents were really interested and had lots of questions for them.

Lunchtime Wellbeing Club

The lunchtime Wellbeing  Club runs every Monday across KS1 and KS2 lunchtimes. Our Wellbeing Champions helped to think of activities for it and also help to run it. They encourage children to join in - and also take part themselves. Each week we try to have different activities that help us to relax and hopefully improve our wellbeing! Examples of activities we  will be doing:

• painting positive messages on rocks
• gratitude paperchains
• mindfulness colouring
• friendship bracelets
• joke station

Anti-Bullying Ambassador Training

On Wednesday 8th March, some of our Wellbeing Champions attended anti-bullying training at Didsbury High School. This was run by The Diana Trust and was attended by several other schools. As we were only able to access ten places, all of our Year 5 Champions attended so that they will be able to continue the good work when they are in Year 6. Names were drawn out of a hat for the remaining four places (we have 14 Wellbeing Champions).

All of our Wellbeing Champions will be taking part in our future anti-bullying work and campaigns.

In the Diana Trust programmes and initiatives, ‘change’ for and by young people is central, including their anti-bullying work, which encourages change in attitudes and behaviours.

Everyone worked really hard on the day, joining in and answering lots of questions. Following the training, the Wellbeing Champions will be choosing which anti-bullying campaign they would like to run - this enables us to make changes in schoool and earn our first badge. We will be meeting soon to decide which of the following areas we want to run our campaign on:

• Respect
• wellbeing
• Online Safety
• Community Action

Watch this space for updates!

Everyone who attended was proud to receive their Anti-bullying Ambassador badge and certificate

Anti-Bullying Week

To launch Anti-Bullying week (14-18th November) this year, the Wellbeing Champions delivered an assembly to the whole school all about how children can reach out to others if they need support. They practised their lines and did a really fantastic job on the day.

Buddy Bench

Last year we did some fundraising so that we could buy a 'Buddy Bench' for the playground - we were finally able to order it in September and it was fitted on the KS2 playground over the half-term break in October.

A buddy bench is a bench which children should sit on if they ever feel sad, upset, worried or perhaps just a little bit lonely. If a child sits on the bench, it shows the Wellbeing Champions, staff and all of the other children that they are in need of a friend or a 'buddy'. 

Buddy benches are a great way for children to make new friends if they don't have the confidence, are shy or suffer from social anxiety. It also helps children express their emotions and help other children understand how they are feeling. As well as promoting friendship, buddy benches promotes inclusion and also help children to understand the feelings of others and encourages them to be kind and caring towards other people.

2021/22

Our 'Wellbeing Champions' were established - children from Years 5 and 6 applied for the job and were appointed. They completed some training sessions around what mental health means. They all wear a 'Wellbeing Champion' armband so that the other children know who they are and can approach them if they need some help or support when on the playground.

Kindness Jars

In December 2021, the Champions came together to think about ways in which we could encourage even more kindness in school. They voted on their different ideas and the winner was to create Kindness Jars for every class. They then applied for a grant from 52 Lives School of Kindness - and were successful! We received the funds in January 2022, which meant that we were able to buy all of the resources needed to make the jars.

The Wellbeing Champions worked hard to think of different 'Acts of Kindness' to go into the jars and then all worked together to create seventeen of them - one for every class. These are now being used - an 'Act of Kindness' is chosen from the jar each day and everyone in the class - including adults - has to carry out that kind act.

Random Acts of Kindness Day

The team helped to run a Random Acts of Kindness day in school during the summer term. They all worked together to provide drinks of juice to every class during their morning break. At lunchtime we held a joke competition on the playgrund - lots of children took part and it made lunchtime great fun.

2020/21

Last year, as part of our Mentally Healthy Schools training, we worked alongside Place2be and Rachel Mackenzie, an olympic Thai boxing champion who works for the Youth Sport Trust.  Rachel worked with a small group of year 5 and 6 to train them as Mental Health Champions.  

Before lockdown, they ran a lunchtime club, with the help of some staff Mental Health First Aiders, with other children in school.  The club encouraged the chidlren to get physiclly and mentally active and work together in teams.   

This year, whilst our Covid risk assessment is in place, we will be looking for different ways to work with our Mental Health Champions until they are allowed to work with children from other year groups.