Tuesday 17th January, pupils at Dean Close Preparatory School spent the day developing their camping, leadership and First Aid skills as part of a ‘Healthy Living Day’.
Healthy Living Day is part of an ongoing whole school well-being program to promote personal well-being and to equip pupils with key life skills. Throughout the day groups of children rotated between four sessions. These included: leadership skills where they learnt to take responsibility for themselves and others through a variety of team building exercises such as the plank challenge, camping skills in which they had a go at setting up and striking camp and making hot chocolate on a ‘Trangia’ stove. They also looked at personal health and an introduction to First Aid, covering topics such as changes during adolescence and resuscitation.
Claire Salisbury, Head of PHSCE (Personal Health, Social and Citizenship Education) explained, “These sessions are aimed at our older pupils who are about to become teenagers. We have focused on four key areas of importance to give pupils a broad overview of the life stage they are about to enter and to empower them to make healthy choices based on some of the information we have provided. For example, any time spent outdoors away from their screens has to be a step towards heathy living! Education is about so much more than the topics pupils study in class; how they behave as individuals towards themselves and others is of equal importance in shaping the adults they will become.”
Pupil, Bea Davidson enthused, “I really enjoyed the day, I have never used a ‘Trangia’ stove, I will be really encouraging my parents to take me camping in the summer, I know we would have lots of fun. I also feel much more comfortable trying to help someone if they were in difficulty and needed to be put in the recovery position, I am confident that I would know what to do.”