Wellbeing Wednesday
Our innovative Wellbeing Wednesday co-curricular project is aimed at improving pupils wellbeing, and giving them a chance to experience a wide range of enriching activities which sometimes get squeezed out of our busy school timetables and home lifestyles!
We are still feeling the effects of the years of disruption from the pandemic on children’s mental health, resilience and social skills. Our Wellbeing Wednesdays are all about developing the whole child, helping them to find a passion and feel good about themselves.
Children work in groups across the whole school to join in with different fun clubs each Wednesday afternoon. Working in mixed age groups, allows children to form caring bonds to across the school, making connections and allowing older children to take responsibility and nurture our youngest pupils.
The exciting activities are co-curricular: they complement add onto our core curriculum in school, but unlike an ‘extra-curricular’ activity, these clubs are for everyone and are free to parents! Our clubs support the development of the skills and experiences which we think all children should be entitled to before they leave their infant school years
This year the project has been once again funded by our fantastic governing board who have agreed the project is so beneficial to our school that they will finance it from their Governor’s Fund.
Clubs cover wellbeing skills such as mindfulness, relaxing pursuits such as clay sculpting, active sessions such as Fun PE and forest school, learning something new in Spanish and textiles and the fun bits of the curriculum that everyone wishes they could spend more time on such as cookery and music.
Clubs are provided by a mixture of outside experts, “Junior Jam”, and our fantastic teaching assistants, Sports Coach Chris and Forest school Leaders Sian and Diane. Each year, we ask the children to review the clubs at the end of the year, so we can make sure we kept the favourites and use some new ideas that they have suggested too.
The timetable shows which two clubs each child’s group will be doing each week. Children should know which animal group they are in, but if families are unsure, the office can let you know.
Children checking to timetable to see which club they are going to this week
This is a brief summary of the 2025/26 clubs and what the children will experience:
Forest School – led by Sian and Diane, who are level 3 forest school trained providers from Forest Families. The children are shown practical natural activities including seasonal natural crafts such as flower stamping and twig wrapping; and closely supervised outdoor skills such as whittling (with carrots), sawing ‘leaf cookies’, fire-lighting with flints. They can choose to have a go at the activities or to explore the area and climb, swing, make mud pies or look for minibeasts etc.
Spanish – led by Kuldip, a specialist teacher from Junior Jam and supported by Charley. Children learn Spanish interactions such as how to say hello what is your name, my name is…, they also learn simple vocabulary such as names of fruits, colours, pets etc. and do some colouring or simple craft related to this.
iPad Club – led by Gladys, a specialist teacher from Junior Jam. Children are shown how to use simple educational apps to make music (Garage Band) and to create art (on a paint programme for infants called JiT) they work with a partner to collaborate on a simple project.
Art and Craft – led by Mrs Hankin and Mrs Egginton – children enjoy a range of art and craft projects using different techniques and linked to the time of year, e.g. collage, bubble painting, yarn craft etc. They can also practice drawing skills with an online drawing tutorial, and enjoy playing in the Reception classroom with the blocks, role play area etc.
Fun PE – led by Coach Chris, our specialist sports coach, and supported by Mrs Ford. Children have extra time on the climbing equipment and bikes then enjoy using the apparatus and other favourite PE activities in the hall.
Construction Club – led by Mrs E. Smith and Mrs Smart. Children are given a construction challenge and enjoy using lego, outdoor construction toys, junk modelling, knex and other construction toys to build their challenge.
Book Club – led by Mrs May and Mrs Barton. Children visit the school library to hear a story from the ‘book of the week’. They have some time to explore the library and read books, then return to the classroom for activities such as craft and small world play inspired by the theme of the book of the week.
Instruments – led by Gloria, a specialist teacher from Junior Jam. Children enjoy using an instruments to practice skills such as rhythm, pitch, tempo and beat. Thorough the year, the club use different instruments, for example African drums, ukuleles, boom whackers, electronic drums and keyboards.
Cookery – – led by Mrs Hudson and Mrs Westwood. Children practice cookery skills such as chopping, peeling, mixing, melting, sprinkling. They make a simple food product each week which they bring home one to try and one to share. Recently they have made things such as decorated biscuits, pizza pockets and apple ‘doughnuts’. The children can also enjoy playing with the role play and small world toys, including the pretend play house in the Rainbow Room.
Clay Club – led by Mrs Wells and Mrs Cross – children experiment with simple clay techniques such as rolling, pinching, stamping and joining, and use these to make creations which they bring home to impress you.
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