This week was Children’s Mental Health week and to support our students to maintain a healthy mind we displayed lots of self-help books that give advice on how to boost confidence and resilience, and nurture a sense of inner wellbeing. Here in the library we have books promoting healthy lifestyle choices and lots of literature outlining options for support for anyone feeling overwhelmed by circumstances or struggling with unhelpful thought patterns.

We’ve also displayed works of fiction that deal with the often complex themes around mental health. We believe this encourages our students to connect to fictional characters and allows them to see how problems can arise, and how they can be resolved. We hope that this will help them to reflect on their own mental health, and that of friends and family members, and to understand that asking for help and support is encouraged, and can really make a difference.

There are posters throughout the school with contact information for anyone who’d like to chat about any issues that are causing concern or worry.

We also marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, with a wide-ranging choice of fiction and non-fiction books for those interested to learn more about the Holocaust and its impacts on both the individuals involved and society as a whole. And we even squeezed in a display to mark the Lunar New Year, the Chinese Year of the Snake.

We’re happy to announce that Olivia T in year 8 was the lucky winner of the “Where’s Winnie?” challenge, which was run in conjunction with the English department, to celebrate National Winnie the Pooh Day. Along with many others, Olivia enjoyed hunting out Winnie each day, and her name was drawn out of the correct answers, winning her a jar of runny honey and a Winnie the Pooh bookmark. Congratulations Olivia, and well done to everyone who took part.