The amount of time staff and students are spending on screens because of covid is a lot and believe me it’s pretty exhausting. I don’t know why its more tiring but it really is. I really praise our students for how they are spending the day doing sessions online starting in crew every morning.

So I wanted to think of ways we can still be crew but actually get away from the screen and spend a bit of time looking after ourselves, slowing down and caring for and nurturing ourselves. What better way to encompass all those things than a nice big home cooked breakfast…. and what better time than during crew to do this together.

At the beginning of the week we each thought about a breakfast we’d like to prepare and cook for ourselves or someone else in our house. Some knew within seconds what they were mocking whereas it took others till Friday morning to decide. 

We checked in this morning (Friday) as normal to do the register and then discussed what each of us was cooking. James S must have been starving as he’d already started sending pics of him cooking his scrambled eggs!

Tom wasn’t feeling hungry so he lovingly cooked his mum beans on toast, brilliant!

James L even went to the trouble of making homemade hash browns, he said he’d over spiced them but i was still impressed.

Gracie prepared herself a beautiful healthy and colourful breakfast of crumpets, fried tomatoes and rocket, it looked so pretty!

Maddison continued the pancake day theme with chocolate chip pancakes that looked yummy!

Although Cara hadn’t a clue all week of what to cook she did a fab looking poached egg on toast, poaching an egg takes skill!

Sam did a classic egg & bacon sarnie on brown with his morning cup of coffee, our Sam does like his coffee!

Sophie also had an egg & bacon sarnie but in a bap with a perfectly fired egg, (she’s also partial to some butter on her bread by the looks of it ; )

James SK looked a natural in the kitchen and couldn’t wait to get started with his bacon and scrambled eggs which tempted me into cooking myself scrambled eggs with a couple of left over sausages.

We then rejoined the hangout and talked through how it had gone and I think everyone enjoyed themselves being off screen having some restful and much needed time looking after ourselves, I know I did!

Click here to have a look at these tasty pics!

This term our Wise Wednesday crew sessions are focusing on how we can support our own mental well being.

Some students may feel that this will be of no benefit to them, that they feel absolutely fine, don’t need any help or techniques to help with their mental well being…

However what if we think ahead and create a tool kit of supportive strategies now, before problems like anxiety, depression, isolation, and other life pressures hit us. Hopefully, if or when any of these problems arise we are already equipped to deal with them.

Like anything, these techniques need to be practised to get the true benefit from them. By becoming familiar with them sooner rather than later, will make it easier to engage in them when things get tough.

This weeks session was the BODY SCAN. A body scan is a type of meditation whereby you mentally scan yourself from head to toe. You are bringing awareness to every single part of your body, noticing any aches, pains, tension, or general discomfort. Staying present and breathing into these sensations can help bring relief to our minds and bodies.

Our learning target was: I can identify the benefits to my mental health through taking part in a form of relaxation technique called a body scan.

As expected not everyone felt an immediate positive impact from it. As crew Hahn had already done this last term, we tried an alternative type of scan where we focus on contracting our muscles before relaxing them which helps to identify what it actually feels like for certain areas of our body to be relaxed. For example when we are stressed we naturally tense our shoulders and neck so sometimes we might think we are relaxed when actually we are not.

As i previously said, not everyone will feel its benefits after doing it once or twice. For people who haven’t done anything like this before it can seem very odd lying on the floor next to your mate concentrating on parts of the body and your breathing. Hopefully though, if and when students are experiencing difficulty such as poor sleep or if they are feeling overwhelmed with anxiety they can look back to these session and have a go.

Why not have a try at this yourself? There are loads of body scan meditations on the internet. Here is a link to a headspace.com body scan free trial, why not give it a try yourself…….