It's Nearly Christmas
Date: 8 Dec 2020
It's Nearly Christmas.
What a tough year it has been for everyone, we have been working flat out on Covid-19 and hence no blog for a few weeks.
We are aware of how hard it has been for school staff over this academic year too. Having to arrange a new classroom layout, keeping social distance and working from 2m taped boxes at the front of the room. The worry and anxiety of which bubble, Class, Year group is about to close, am I going to be a contact, will I need to isolate, how many students will I have in class, online, isolating. The list goes on and yet we know and need to keep children in school and be educated. This is why it is important you look after your wellbeing, so you can continue teaching at your best. Physical wellbeing has a big impact on how you feel emotionally and mentally. At times like these, it can be easy to fall into unhealthy patterns of behaviour which, in turn, make you feel worse. As a food technologist I recommend eating healthy, well-balanced meals and drink enough water. NHS One You has a lot of advice and ideas for easy cook meals.
Where possible, exercise at home and/or outside. If you can’t exercise outside, you can find free, easy 10-minute workouts from Public Health England (PHE) or other exercise videos to try on the NHS Fitness Studio. Sport England also has good tips for keeping active at home.
Get away from lesson planning and other school work, read, write, play games, do crossword puzzles, Sudoku’s, jigsaws or drawing and painting, whatever works best for you. Take time to relax and focus on the present, relaxation techniques can help some people to deal with feelings of anxiety. For useful resources, see Every Mind Matters and the NHS mindfulness page.
Equally children and young people need continued support and as always we continue to update our resources on the Healthy Schools website. Schools have received ELSA training, use your expert colleagues to put these skill into practice. Encourage young people to use the online service of Kooth. There are so many services and resources available to support students, visit the Swindon Local Offer. Visit the Healthy Schools website, Core Themes page for the latest MAGIC video which helps young people understand the 5 ways to wellbeing.
To continue our support with Covid-19, we have been sending out information via the education team, which should be disseminated to you via your school leads. Last week we created a document, Covid-19 update for Educational Settings. This document was produced in conjunction with PHE updates and reminders for schools. We are in the process of preparing a document you can send out to parents and pupils to stay safe over Christmas. This will be shared with schools very soon
For continued support, advice, guidance for you or your young people, as always we urge you to contact us via the healthy schools inbox, swindonhealthyschool@swindon.go.uk.
On a final note, it’s nearly Christmas, don’t forget, that well-earned break is only two weeks away.
