Amber Flag/Wellbeing

Wellbeing Week

Wellbeing Week ran from Monday the 8^th of May 2023 to Friday the 12^th of May.

It began with Mindfulness Monday. On Monday we did activities such as shake up wake up, stop and drop, mindfulness colouring, a PE challenge and a body scan. Some of the younger classes also went to the playground.

On Tuesday it was Thankful Tuesday. We did lots of nice activities including shake up wake up, stop and drop, rainbow moments, a gratitude scavenger hunt and mindfulness colouring. The older classes also complete a leaf activity whereby they wrote things they were grateful for on a leaf and we hung them up on our gratitude tree. They also wrote a gratitude letter of card for someone.

On Wednesday it was Wellbeing Wednesday. Our activities on Wednesday included a whole school walk which was kindly led by Helen McGrath. The classes made fruit skewers and cookies. We also did outdoor activities and games and a well-being profile.

All classes also designed rocks using paint markers.

On Thursday it was Thoughtful Thursday. We did more stations which included lego, jigsaws, board games and some more baking. We also did stop and drop and shake up wake up.

On Friday it was Friendly Friday and the whole school wore their pyjamas which was great fun. Brenda from Blossom Yoga came into the school and did yoga with all the classes and the staff. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed this activity. We had a whole school picnic and Des Dillon came in as a surprise for the kids. The whole school sang the song Count on Me together. Some classes also did buddy reading, compliment jars, secret friends and friendship bracelets.

We all had a fantastic week and a huge thank you to Ms. Moloney for all the effort she put into organising Wellbeing Week.

Pieta Amber Flag Initiative

The Pieta Amber Flag Initiative recognises the individual efforts of primary and secondary schools, youthreach, third level institutions, community groups and clubs to create healthy, inclusive environments that support mental well-being.

This year we worked towards getting our Amber Flag by focusing on wellbeing promotion in the school. Our Student Council worked with Ms. Moloney and Ms. Stafford throughout the year.

We got involved in a range of activities to promote wellbeing such as:

We sent out wellbeing surveys to all the class from 1^st to 6^th class for the pupils to fill out in order to find out how all the pupils were feeling.

We organised a Christmas jumper day on the 9^th of December in aid of Pieta House.

We took part in the Care Pack initiative for the elderly whereby we made Christmas cards for elderly people living in Nursing Homes across Tipperary, in the hopes that our Christmas cards would bring them some joy.

We took part in a kindness challenge whereby each person in the class got a secret friend.

The Amber Flag committee organised well- being activities for each class during little lunch on a Friday. These activities ranged from chalk, playground games, skipping, hop-scotch, bask We celebrated World Compliment Day in our school on the 1^st of March 2023. We also did an activity in class whereby each pupil wrote their name on the top of a piece of paper and handed it around the class. Everyone wrote something nice about them and they then created a flower picture. They put their picture in the middle of the flower and wrote their favourite compliments in the petals around the flower. etball etc.

Just before we broke up for the Christmas holidays the 5^th and 6^th class created a Christmas newsletter full of nice activities to try at home, games, recipes, stories, poems and news about what was happening in school. We then sold the Tinsel times to anyone in school who wanted to buy it. We raised over €860 euros and that money was donated to two amazing charities- Barnardos and Positive Steps.

We celebrated World Compliment Day in our school on the 1^st of March 2023. We created a compliment notice board whereby the amber flag committee wrote out different compliments on pieces of paper and stuck them up on the notice board. Each child could then take down a compliment and give it to someone.

We celebrated Wellbeing in May 2023 have lots of photos and videos from our wellbeing week. During our Wellbeing Week we had Mindful Monday, Thankful Tuesday, Wellbeing

During our Wellbeing Week we had Mindful Monday, Thankful Tuesday, Wellbeing Wednesday, Thoughtful Thursday and Friendly Friday.

We were delighted to be awarded our Amber Flag last week. Well done to our Student Council, Ms. Moloney and Ms. Stafford for all the work that they put in throughout the year. We are looking forward to continued work in this area going forward.