The aim of our recent kindness fortnight was to explore our Josephite themes of Pastoral Care and Hospitality. We did this by encouraging staff and pupils to carry out Random Acts of Kindness across the two weeks. We also brought a splash of colour to our school community through the Colour Run, voted in the new class GOALies, donated books to charity, celebrated Children’s Mental Health Week and a whole host of other activities.

In the first week, the main activity was voting in the new GOALies, our PSHE class representatives. GOALies stand for ‘Go Out And Listen’, and these children are there to help the other children if they don’t have anyone to play with or if they feel sad. Amongst other jobs, they also welcome new children to the school and judge the Interhouse poster competition. In the second week, the old and new GOALies got together at breaktime to celebrate their roles.

All the children in the school decorated a card building brick inspired by our Georgian values to create a whole school display around our ‘Be the i in Kind’ kindness recognition wall.

Across both weeks, the children joined in lots of exciting activities to discover ways to spread kindness throughout all areas of the school and local community. These included daily random act of kindness challenges which really raised everyone’s spirit. During the second week, we also celebrated Children’s Mental Health week, the theme of which was ‘Let’s Connect’. On Wellbeing Wednesday, all the children participated in a wide array of activities designed to support their mental health. These ranged from a walk along the towpath up to Walton Bridge to visiting the Library to make a Kindness Jar, from joining in with an uplifting music activity to an Interhouse teamwork challenge!

The pinnacle of the day was the fantastic Colour Run. To participate in the Colour Run, the children had to donate a children’s book so that two local charities could be supported: The Princess Alice Hospice and Woking and Sam Beare Hospice. The books were dropped off to their shops for them to sell and also for them to take to their Hospices for children to read whilst visiting.

Everyone had so much fun during the run, and it certainly embraced the Kindness Counts theme ‘When we share acts of kindness, we colour the world’ as the teachers and children helped and encouraged each other to complete as many laps of the course as possible.

The fortnight was a huge success and reinforced the importance of always spreading kindness across our school community.

By Mrs Emily Stather, Curriculum Leader for PSHE and Y2 Group Tutor