Throughout this academic year a group of our year 10 pupils have been working hard with their athlete mentor (Jenna Downing). They were selected to take part in the ‘On Track To Achieve Programme’ run by the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust.

Following several competitive proposals, staff selected the project which would see our students deliver an activity session for all our year 8 pupils focusing on boosting their mental health and raising awareness of how to maintain positive mental wellbeing both on an individual level and through accessing support from others.

On Wednesday 18th March they worked together to coordinate and deliver a range of activities to year 8 four forms at a time throughout the day. Each session was opened by Amber who delivered a very confident welcome speech, drawing on her own experiences and encouraging open discussion between peers.

The girls ran sessions including; art therapy, worry/ gratitude box, tightrope of trust, MH egg hunt, emotions obstacle course and a support scenario penalty shoot out.

All our pupils delivered sessions with confidence and worked hard to ensure they provided an engaging and positive session to the younger year. The sessions were wrapped up with a fantastic and emotive sharing of Leah’s personal struggles with her mental health and how she has overcome these with support from her mentor in school Miss Ashbrook. We then had a cake sale from which the proceeds will be supporting a local homeless charity, thank you to the girls for their time making and decorating the cakes and for anyone who bought one in support.

We would like to extend our thanks to Jenna Downing from the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust who brings a positive attitude and boundless energy to every session, supporting our pupils to be their best selves. We would also like to thank the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust for sourcing funding for this programme and providing this fantastic opportunity to our students.

The group of students have shown fantastic commitment to the project, they have brought their own personal experiences and skill sets to support each other and have developed both individually and as a team throughout the programme. They should be extremely proud of their achievements and the positive impact they have had on the young people this year.