A WEEK of activities dedicated to promoting wellbeing and positivity was held in school just before half term.
Planning for the week back in April last year and we enlisted medal winning Paralympians to help deliver the programme!
Swimmer Tom Hamer talked to Sixth Form students while archer Danielle Brown spoke to all year groups, helped sixth formers with exam preparation and motivation and ran archery sessions for staff.
Mrs Ridgway organised a spectacular spelling out of the school’s initials HHS which involved around 350 Year 9 and Year 7 students.
Former teacher Peter Farrow (of Farrow and Farrow estate agents) flew a drone to 58m to capture the display from the air.
Art teacher Mrs Yates painted a huge wellbeing tree along a corridor outside the dining hall.
She said: “Everyone from school, all the staff and all the students, from Year 7 to Sixth Form, have come down as an act of unity, as a family, to place a finger print on the leaves of the tree.”
School council volunteers gave up their time after school to bake scores of buns, cookies and cakes which sold out at break.
Assistant Headteacher Miss Finney, who also runs the school council, said: “We had about 15 volunteers who came after school and were baking for almost two hours
Mrs Ridgway said: “We held a non-uniform day on Valentine’s Day and all money raised during the week went to the School Council to support the many plans that they want to deliver.
“We asked students to carry out random acts of kindness and write down what they had done, if they wished, and these will form a permanent display.
We had a chatty café at break and lunchtime for anyone wanting to talk which was set up and manned by the school council. ‘Puddings of the Past’ were recreated in the kitchens; we had authors speaking to English classes and the whole focus was about being positive and giving something back.”
Sporting activities were on offer every day in the gym and students were encouraged to use a wellbeing app on their iPads and to listen to a mindfulness podcast.