The week of Friday 16th of November, saw the fourth of the Senior School’s mental health and well-being days, where we strive to promote good mental health through positive behaviours. Odd socks day, is a national mental health and anti-stigma campaign where stigma around mental health is aimed to be ‘stomped out’. Stigma associated with mental illness is still the biggest barrier to people seeking help and recovery. On Friday 16th of November, all students were encouraged to wear odd socks to school to help ‘stomp out the stigma’. The aim behind wearing odd socks is to show that anyone can have a bad day.
The new Student Leadership Team for 2019 worked together to develop activities for House Tutorials and presented information to the cohort regarding the types of mental health issues as well as the reason behind our school’s promotion of positive behaviours for good mental health.
Throughout the week, 15 socks were hidden every morning for a continuing sock hunt. The socks each contained a card to remind students to ‘stomp out the stigma’.
We had the various House Tutorial Groups rotating between 5 different fun activities. Tute groups rotated between a pin the sock on the Huffalump activity (Huffalumps were beautifully painted by Brooke); an odd sock parade; sock toss (get 3 socks stuffed with a tennis ball into the bucket); most number of socks put on one foot in 60 seconds; and a three legged race. Prizes were given out to winning students at each event.
Thank you to all the students who wore odd socks in an effort to support the promotion of good mental health through positive behaviours.
Written by the 2019 Student Leadership Team