Project teaches Chichester children important life skills to help maintain wellbeing

Nadia and Sunny of Midhurst Primary School were enthusiastic about their Five Ways to Wellbeing session at school

Local schoolchildren have been learning important skills which will help them maintain their happiness and wellbeing thanks to an ongoing project delivered by START in partnership with Chichester District Council’s Wellbeing team.

Five Ways to Wellbeing sessions have recently been running at North Mundham Primary School; Portfield Primary School in Chichester; Midhurst Primary School; and Seal Primary Academy in Selsey, amongst others within the District.

The project has been running successfully for several years and supports the mental health of Year Five primary school children, teaching them how to incorporate five positive actions into their daily lives and as a part of their communities.

The Five Ways are:

• Connect: encouraging children to strengthen and broaden their range of relationships and social networks. It encourages them to spend time with their friends and family whilst staying safe on the internet.

• Be active: stresses that being active is for people of all ages and does not need to be intense physical activity, you just need to raise your heartbeat and have fun.

• Keep learning: learning can be taken out of the classroom, skills and ideas can be learnt everywhere.

• Take notice: asks children to take time to stop, become aware of their surroundings and listen to their thoughts and feelings about them.

• Give: focuses on how giving and receiving acts of kindness, whether small or large, can make people feel happier and more satisfied about life.

Following the pandemic, all the sessions have returned to face-to-face sessions after running virtually during this time. The engaging sessions follow a workshop-style format and lead the children through a range of fun activities over the course of the day.

As well as the workshops being fun, they are an interactive way to learn how to improve and maintain wellbeing and be able to support others. All the activities help the children and their ability to work together, increase positivity, and learn new skills which they can then use in everyday life.

Sunny and Nadia from Midhurst spoke about how much the sessions had already made an impact on them and what they enjoyed most: “We had to draw our journeys to school and what we noticed and saw,” explains Nadia. “I really enjoyed that as I saw birds and rabbits this morning”.

Sunny enjoyed how active some of the activities had been and learnt a good way to make feel others included: “I think the best way to get to know people is to make a big game with your friends but let everyone join in, that way everyone gets to have fun”.

“Five Ways to Wellbeing has proven to be such an important project and we’re very pleased to see it continue to help teach children valuable lessons on how to help look after theirs and others wellbeing both now and later in their lives,” says Councillor Roy Briscoe, Cabinet Member for Communities, Sport and Culture at Chichester District Council.

“The young people of today experience a variety of pressures, and as a society we’re much more aware of that and how it affects young people’s wellbeing. Five Ways provides them with tools to help cope with that and learn how to approach life and keep well.”

For more information and advice on steps to help maintain wellbeing and mental health, people can visit Chichester Wellbeing’s website at chichester.westsussexwellbeing.org.uk/

People can also access wellbeing information and advice through our Supporting You campaign webpages, which can be found at: chichester.gov.uk/helpwithhealthandwellbeing or contact the team directly on [email protected] and 01243 534860.