Churchill Wins Healthy School Award

We are proud to have been awarded North Somerset's Healthy School's status, in recognition of our ongoing commitment to healthier, happier learning.

Over the course of this year, our main focus has been on helping targeted groups of vulnerable students to improve their mental and physical health by developing their resilience. Our journey this year began with a six week after school ‘Healthy Living Project’, which enabled a group of students to try out various activities which would encourage them to improve their diet and activity levels.  To help them understand the link between physical and mental health, there was also an element of ‘Mindfulness’ to encourage more positive thought processes.  It gave the students a huge boost to be able to cook a healthy meal for invited guests at the final session and to give short presentations about how the project had improved their health and confidence. Overall, all the students reported feeling happier after the project had ended, which was very gratifying to hear for those involved.

We have also run another wellbeing project at lunchtime, which addressed health in a holistic way and focused on strategies that students could use when experiencing difficulties.  All the students felt that these strategies would be helpful to them and there was a marked improvement in awareness of mental health and how it links to physical health.

Positive links have been made with the community during an eight week gardening project.  Some students have been helping a local church group to raise money for charity while also making a contribution to the visual appeal of a local area.  Being involved in the local community has had a very positive effect on them by increasing their self-esteem.  

Shaun Cheesman and Alison Ball, from the North Somerset Healthy Schools Network Team, said: "We congratulate everyone who has been involved in your Healthy Schools journey this year, for boosting opportunities to support students to be  emotionally healthy.  We’d like to reiterate again how impressed we’ve been with the high profile that the school has given to supporting the mental health of its students.  It has been a pleasure to work with you and we look forward to working with your school in the future."

Thanks go to Sue Kelly, Sarah Wratten, Natasha Bluck and Natalie Jones for overseeing this great work with students. 

Pictured: Miss Bluck and Mrs Jones collecting our award at the celebration event