Coinciding with National Children’s Mental Health Week, our weekly programme of year group and House activities continues to bring pupils together in all kinds of fun and engaging ways. Children’s Mental Health Week is an initiative set up by young peoples’ mental health charity, Place2Be, in 2015. This year’s theme is #ExpressYourself, which our pupils adopted with enthusiasm.

Here’s just some of the many activities our pupils are getting involved in every week:

Prep School Artworks
Years 2 and 3 Prep School pupils were asked to express themselves through art. They did a fantastic job, creating pop-art, Monet-style prints and natural life paintings.

Off-Timetable Days Come Dine With Me
One of the challenges of learning remotely is managing screen-time and ensuring that pupils are able to spend some time away from their learning to develop other skills. This week, in the lead-up to half-term, pupils were given Off-Timetable Days, whereby they were able to use the day to get involved with something completely different. Pupils took part in a Come Dine With Me challenge, where each House was given the cuisine of a different country to create and produce. They then had to upload images and videos of them making the meals as well as the finished dishes.

Music Scholars Concert
This week, music scholars gave a virtual concert to an online audience. The concert involved a range of musicians coming together to make music in what is a difficult time for live music. Despite this, the concert was really well received by the audience and culminated in a nice moment when, at the end of the concert, the audience switched their cameras on to clap the musicians.

House Activities
House activities continue to be a huge part of the pastoral care here at Framlingham College, with regular quizzes, cookery contests and film nights proving a hit with pupils learning remotely. Last week, girls at Pembroke House came together via Zoom to create ‘emoji cakes’ as a twist on the Children’s Mental Health Week theme of #ExpressYourself inspired by Great British Bake Off.