From the 9th to the 15th February 2026, it is a Place2Be's Children's Mental Health Week.

Here at St Mary's, we will be using Friday 13th February to explore their theme of 'This is my place.'

On their website, this theme is explained as, ‘feeling like you’re a part of something, such as your family, your school, your group of friends or a team. These happy moments help us feel connected, valued, and accepted. When we feel like we belong, we feel happy, safe, and ready to learn and play. It helps us grow strong in our minds and bodies, and it makes it easier to make friends, do well in school, and feel good about ourselves.’

The children will take part in lots of activities that help them to celebrate their sense of belonging and better understand their thoughts, feelings and behaviours in relation to different emotions. 

Belonging tile activity

Each child decorated a small tile to represent themselves.  They used their favourite colours, wrote words or drew pictures to represent what makes them special as an individual.  The children then looked at how their tile was similar to another child's.  We founds links through colours, words, themes or pictures.  This then continued, with further links being made until all the tiles fit together in one large shape.

This activity helped us to understand that as individuals, we are all different and special in our own way but that we also find belonging in larger groups though our shared interests.

Nursery
Nursery enjoyed a calm and colourful day focused on feelings and wellbeing. We began by decorating our own individual tiles, choosing colours and patterns to show our ideas and personalities. We then looked for matching colours, shapes and interests to fit our tiles together, creating one big class tile and celebrating how we all belong together.

We also revisited The Colour Monster story! We began by using the different colours to help us talk about our feelings. The children matched emotions to coloured pots, helping them to recognise and name how they feel. 

Afterwards, we enjoyed a relaxing spa session with cucumbers on our eyes! We had lots of fun dipping our feet in the water and taking calm breaths. The children also took part in a gentle peer massage in the afternoon, helping their friends feel safe and cared for. 

Reception

For Mental Health Week, we dedicated the day to relaxing and focusing on mindfulness together. The children enjoyed calming peer massage and took part in “hot shots,” helping them slow down, regulate their breathing and stay present in the moment. We explored movement and relaxation through Under the Sea Cosmic Yoga, then expressed our creativity with some wonderful mindful colouring. To celebrate connection and community, we created a collaborative “Belonging Tile Activity,” where the children reflected on their favourite colours, hobbies, and foods. We matched similarities with our friends and celebrated how we are alike, helping everyone feel valued, connected, and a true sense of belonging.

Year 1

We enjoyed some lovely peer massage led by our wonderful Year 5 pupils. This helped us to learn some new strategies to use if we ever feel dysregulated. 

We all decorated a tile with things that were special to us. We then looked at all of our tiles and found connections and shared themes. We arranged tiles with similarities next to one another and created a class display. We really enjoyed finding out new things that we didn't know about one another. 

Year 5

The class atomiser was filled with a lemongrass scent for the day which created a relaxing, spa-like atmosphere.  Our first activity was decorating our individual tiles.  We then looked for shared interests, themes, shapes and colours to fit them together to make one whole class tile.

Before lunch, we took part in some peer massage.

In the afternoon, we wrote positive statements about each member of our class.  We thought about why they were special to us and what we liked about them.  These were cut out and distributed to the individuals.  Each child finished the day with a card from their peers sharing what is amazing about them.

Year Six:

During 'Children's Mental Health Week' we enjoyed taking part in some 'hot shots' sessions led by Mrs Belfield. We also did some mindfullness colouring alongside contributing towards our whole class mosaic - expressing the things that we love about ourselves and comparing our individual squares with each other.