Reflecting on Mental Health and Wellbeing this year:

Nothing has brought the importance of mental health and wellbeing to the forefront of all our minds like the pandemic. And as usual the TBS community has risen to the challenge and continues to do so. 

Underpinning the school’s approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing this year has been the three key principles of positive mental health: Healthy Coping Strategies, Critical Thinking and Emotional Literacy.  

Feelings wheel – emotional literacy

The Wellbeing Day on Monday this week certainly highlighted many healthy coping strategies that can support our mental health. Here are some examples of things that took place. These might also serve as ideas that you, as families, can do over the summer break. 

In Secondary: Exercise, mindfulness and meditation, self-coaching and goal setting, meaningful hobbies and art and music as support for wellbeing.

In Primary: Mindfulness and meditation, Salsa dancing, juggling, guitar jamming, mindful eating, cupcake making, Nepali dancing, keep fit sessions and bucket drumming!

One student from Key stage 4 kindly offered to share their experience of starting, and now having a more established meditation practice…. 

“Meditation for me is a way to manage my thoughts and only allow positive thoughts to enter my mind. Meditation provides willpower which helps provide discipline to do the task at hand. At the beginning stage of meditation it might be hard but after you have started to feel the positiveness and the motivation, you could continue for a longer period of time. Meditation helps you to be calm and aware of the situation or the state of your well being. Even 5 minutes of meditation a day helps you to manage the day ahead of you.

How do I meditate?  You just close your eyes and be aware of your breath. You could have a timeframe of 5 minutes and you could increase it as you go along. Meditation is a  good start to practicing patience.” – Key Stage 4 Student

Some of our students have been keeping wellbeing diaries and have offered to share an entry…

Tanushka, Year 7

Wednesday 9th September 2020

Today I played the piano it was very fun I would definitely do it again!

Benji, Year 8

Day 4

          On day four, I decided to listen to some of my favorite playlists of the 80s like AC/DC and other rock bands. I especially like Jimi Hendrix. Since I love playing guitar I love all these famous old songs. I really enjoy listening to music whenever I’m stressed or unhappy and it cheers me up. Or when I just sing a tune It clears my mind of all stress and sadness.

Supporting Students and Families

It has been important for us as a school to know how students and families have been feeling. The student and parent wellbeing questionnaires and year group / Key Stage parent support sessions (more of these to come) have been an important focus for us to enable us to try to meet the needs of our community.  There have also been many more 1:1 mentor sessions and the Key Stage 5 students were given a well deserved week off following their exams.   

Something that has been so impactful is the increase in open dialogue around mental health. It has been talked about publicly.  Let’s hope we can continue to bring mental health out of the dark and into the light of awareness. The stigma has lessened, people feel freer to speak out…. Whilst we have all been isolating  and ‘keeping our distance’ we have also been brought together in a remarkable way… everybody has been in the same storm, if perhaps not quite the same boat. 

Here is a link to a poem about this:

We Are Not all in The Same Boat

For you: 

Reflection: After reading this poem, take some time to think about what ‘boat’ you are in and what things you are thankful for while we all endure this ‘storm’. What stories have you heard that showcase unexpected acts of kindness? What ways can you reach out to people in your home, your family, your team or your neighbours to find out how they truly are? Reflect on what ways you can make yourself and others feel better through self-reflection, connection, learning and giving?

Several of our Year 12 students are collaborating with students from KISC school to raise funds for Covid-19 support in the Dharan region. The aim is to raise funds that will be used to provide PCR testing kits to the Sunsari District in order to help those who might not otherwise be able to afford testing. Please click this link to watch a promotional video for the project. You can also view the promotional poster. Should you wish to contribute to this cause, please access the following GoFundMe link.

We would like to acknowledge that this community work is not organised by TBS and the charities involved are not TBS Community Partners. We are sharing this information to support our passionate students, however, we cannot guarantee how any donated funds will be used or how the testing kits will be distributed to those in need. Please use your own discretion when deciding to contribute to this cause.

“Hi TBS parents,

As many of you know, the Owls are the parent’s association at TBS. Every year the Owls organize a lunch in recognition of TBS staff. Obviously, this year, it won’t be possible to organize a lunch due to the ongoing COVID situation. However, we still want to show the staff how much we appreciate their work to support our kids’ education, especially during the extremely difficult circumstances of the past 15 months.

With this in mind, the Owls recently set up a google drive and folders where we can all share messages of thanks and appreciation (see email for the drive link). Folders for Primary and Secondary contain subfolders for each class, which in turn, contain folders for individual teachers and assistant teachers. We have also created folders for school security, administrative staff and grounds staff.

Please take a few moments to create messages for the staff who work directly with your children, as well as general messages for groups of staff who provide indirect support for your childrens’ learning experience and upload them to the google drive by Friday, June 25th. Upload messages for individuals to the folders with their names and general messages of appreciation for groups to the main group folders. Messages can take any format you choose – word documents, .pdfs, photos, videos etc. Once we have all of the files, the Owls will send them on to the teachers and staff!

We did our best to include folders for every TBS staff member. However, it is possible we may have missed a few people.If so, and you notice, please email the Owls at tbsowls@tbs.edu.np, so we can add the folder and please don’t hesitate to email the Owls if you have any questions.

Finally, please email, if you are interested in learning more about the Owls and how you can become involved!

Thanks!

TBS Owls”

Please click on the link below for the latest issue of THE FOBISIAN:  June 2021, Term 3, Issue 36.