PSHE Drop-down day

The external company Impressionable Minds visited QM this week to deliver some very engaging workshops on Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE), with the overarching topic of ‘Healthy Body, Healthy Mind’.

Girls in all years engaged in the important topics of positive body image, healthy choices, emotional health, self-esteem and anxiety.

Hannah H (UVI)

On Tuesday, the whole school experienced workshops brought by Impressionable Minds, where each year group had different sessions for two hours. It was a steady start for the Upper Sixth as we weren’t sure what we were going to get out of this day, but we quickly realised that it wasn’t like any other day we had done before.

The whole day was very interactive, playing games at certain points to keep our attention, whilst also learning about very important and interesting things. We kicked the day off with healthy choices delivered to us by Richard - throughout the two hours, we understood that healthy choices weren’t just about the food you eat but the things you can do to improve your daily life and to help your emotional well-being - such as getting 8 hours of sleep on a night, refraining from using social media as much, and socialising with friends. There were many more within the session but that’s just to name a few.

During our second session on Body Image with Francesca, this workshop was about feeling confident in your body and how to have a different outlook and point of view for you to feel confident in your own skin. As we are at an age where this is very important as to how girls and boys can act, so as a whole this workshop was very helpful and informative for Upper Sixth.

Lastly, to finish off the day we had an emotional health workshop, this was focusing on the wellbeing of the mind and working in groups to talk about what this actually is to take away the stigma, using a story to explain what we had been talking about which we performed to the other groups.

At the end of the day, we also performed what we had been working on throughout the day which was a group project that will be submitted and everyone really enjoyed singing or making the rap up for the groups that did it. Before we headed off, Russell from Impressionable minds gave us a talk about why he delivers what he delivers and it was very inspiring for the whole year group and really left us with something to think about and take forward in future lives.

As a whole, we all loved how interactive the day was which meant we took a lot from the day and things that will stick with us as future advice. Overall it was a really good day and from the feedback I had, we would all do it again.

Larissa G and Lilly-Rose (Year IV)

On the PSHE drop-down day we were involved in lots of different topics of conversation during sessions throughout the day. We looked at anxiety, where we talked about different types of anxiety and how to cope with them; Mental ill health, which included lots of games and talking to each other; and self-esteem, when we did some projects about the things we had done in the day so far.

We did lots of activities in each of the sessions and all were equally fun and interesting. It was very useful and I learned, in more detail, that other people might have different things to think about in terms of their emotions, and they can easily suppress it, and this is classed as ‘emotionally mature', while others can’t control some of their emotions and can come across as overwhelming.

I would take into the future the fact of always being aware of others' emotions or emotional state and being there for them if they need help or something else, and try to ask people if they are okay and notice if there is any change in them, whether it be significant or not.

My favourite thing about the drop-down day was the project we were set up throughout the whole day where we had to make something on the topics we had covered, we could make a poster, PowerPoint presentation, leaflet or even a mini film. My group made a film and we really got into it, we even added the bloopers that we caught at the end!