Wellbeing focus – Mental Health
This term our wellbeing focus for Year 8 has been on mental health. We began the term by sharing a useful resource with students from Mindspot, which outlines the ‘Big 5’ things all of us can do for better mental health, this includes:
- - Meaningful activities
- - Healthy thinking
- - Goals and plans
- - Healthy routines
- - Social connections
Wednesday Pastoral Care lessons have built on this theme by giving students practical strategies for looking after their wellbeing. The first lesson focused on recognising signs of mental health concerns and supporting others through the R U OK? framework. The second explored worry, stress and anxiety, with practical strategies that can help support students as they experience these. The third examined negative thinking patterns, encouraging students to reframe their thoughts and practise gratitude through activities like “three good things.”
We encourage you to engage your child in conversation about what they have been learning about mental health through our wellbeing program; experts emphasise that open discussions at home help normalise these topics, strengthen family connections, and give young people the confidence to seek support when needed.
PC Challenge
On Wednesday 6 August, our 8 Pastoral Care groups battled it out for our latest PC Challenge. This time, tasks included an emoji challenge, where students had to guess the classic children’s film by just a few emojis as clues and a quiz featuring fun and little known facts about their teachers. The grand final tasked students with building the highest tower using just 10 pieces of paper, scissors and masking tape – with the added difficulty of not being able to talk as they worked as a team. The winning team of both the building task and the overall challenge were the mighty Carmichael Girls!
Students really enjoyed this activity and it helped continue to foster connections, a spirit of teamwork and camaraderie in each of our Pastoral Care groups.
Pastoral Care Groups Host Year Meetings
As part of our grade’s leadership initiatives, we are asking each Pastoral Care group to host a Year Meeting for us this semester, including reading a passage from the Bible, praying and sharing some announcements. So far, students from Carmichael 1 and Carmichael 2 have done a great job and we look forward to seeing others step up and lead in this way.
Mr Samuel Mills & Mrs Roslyn Rodriguez
Year 8 Advisors