Staying Safe!

Posted at 2:53 pm on 16th December, 2021

Our termly Health and Wellbeing (HWB) Days all carry important messages and this term the theme was “Staying Safe” -  both at Christmas but also all year round. The aim of these dedicated days is to ask students to reflect on their wellbeing, how their actions impact on themselves and others around them and how they can look after each other.

Through our student council, year 11’s requested a focus on wellbeing activities following their mock examinations. They also specifically asked for a self-defense taster session since the recent media coverage of the Sarah Everard case.

 United Kingdom Taekwondo Council (UKTC) provide professional Martial Arts training in Taekwondo for children, teenagers and adults. Mr Starr who facilitated the self defense taster said, ‘The students were actively engaged in a really mature manner.’ 

Year 9 students participated in sessions around healthy relationships from TDAS, a charity working to support young people with healthy relationships and their network of support. TDAS tweeted, ‘Thank you for having us and enabling us to educate #youngpeople on #DomesticAbuse and #healthyrelationships.’

Younger year groups have reflected upon the media’s influence on our body image and how we can embrace positivity in everything we do. They have participated in ‘The Big Answers’ report by the Children’s Commissioner and made suggestions for how FGS can make improvements.

Lots of productive open and honest discussions have taken place around subjects such as antisocial behaviour, first-aid, personal data, personal wellbeing, coping strategies and domestic abuse. Providing our ‘Flixton Family’ with a safe environment for conversations on these subjects to occur, means we can all break down the barriers for future conversations and provide positive actions for our students and the wider community.

Mrs Smith, Health and Wellbeing Lead said, ‘It was fantastic to see students getting involved with all the HWB activities across the year groups. It is really important to engage in these challenging topics to help our young people feel safe. Thank you to all the staff who were involved in the planning and delivering on the day.’

Students have also been provided with guidance following our Student HWB survey in the form of a presentation coordinated through staff and Flixton Girls Council (FGC) HWB Officer, Eleanor Clarke. Her role is it listen to the student voice and put forward future ideas, to provide improvements for everyone’s HWB.