Mrs Helen Keevil, Assistant Head: Pupil Welfare, with Jeremy Thomas
On Monday, Amanda Sander from Mary Frances Trust, hosted a mindfulness session for Lower Sixth Peer Mentors focusing on breathing, stress management and reducing anxiety. The hour involved connecting with all senses and eating mindfully. Thoroughly enjoyed by all.
On Tuesday, Jeremy Thomas delivered an enlightening, emotive and humorous talk on promoting positive mental health to parents and Lower Sixth students. As a result of overcoming his own battle with bipolar disorder, Jeremy co-produced the Emmy Award winning documentary Stephen Fry, The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive and has co-authored an A-Z Guide to Good Mental Health. His talk Living In An Insane World is a personal, authentic, funny, poignant, passionate and at times hard-hitting tale of his own experience of mental illness, with a positive outcome
We also hosted a representative from Tri Tier, a self-protection and security consultancy, who worked with peer mentors in a workshop about understanding different threats to better avoid danger – using awareness, movement and breathing. These new techniques will be shared with younger pupils as the term unfolds, helping everyone to stay safe, calm and happy when out and about.
Shrewsbury House School enjoyed a visit from Epsom pupils who returned to their old school to address pupils on digital wellbeing, phone use and some top tips for staying safe online.
As is part of our weekly routine on campus, Wednesday saw dedicated reflection time in the Chapel, hosted by Mrs Catterall. The Senior Peer Mentors helped to deliver the PSD carousel for Year 9 pupils – covering topics such as character education, settling into a new routine, understanding other people and learning to live in a community. All of which helps to boost our mental health.
On Thursday, the Lower Sixth Peer Mentors continued their Stress and Anxiety Management training, with a two-hour session looking at the trends from the pupil wellbeing survey undertaken in the Summer and plotting new ideas on how to further improve support of our young people at Epsom.
On Friday, the regular PSD lessons all focused on exploring the College’s EDI strategy and continued understanding around protected characteristics as well as discussions around inclusion and other subject areas with Black History Month in mind.
