Celebrating an important event
The Week Junior welcomed students to a special workshop for Children’s Mental Health Week.
On 5 February, a group of 13 students from Knightsbridge School in London visited The Week Junior’s office. They were accompanied by two special guests – CBBC presenter and Strictly star Rhys Stephenson, and artist Xavier Leopold – who work with Place2Be to spread the word about the charity’s mission to improve children’s mental health.
The theme of Children’s Mental Health Week is “My Voice Matters”, so the aim of the visit was to give children a chance to express themselves by contributing to this magazine, and to have their voices heard on our podcast. Two of the students – Pia and Lucy – are this week’s guest editors. They are also Knightsbridge School’s wellbeing ambassadors and they explain what that involves in their editors’ note on page 28.
While Pia and Lucy discussed plans for this issue with the editorial team, the rest of the group got creative. Armed with pens, scissors, glue and old magazines, the crew worked with the special guests to design collages showing the things that are important to them. Some students expressed a love of sports – including football, swimming, baseball and fencing. Others preferred animals, and a few chose to show their favourite foods. Their colourful swirls also featured aliens, books, puzzles, national flags... and a robot dog.
The next activity was to interview Rhys and Xavier, with a few tips from The Week Junior team. The students asked lots of questions and made notes of the answers. Among other things, the students learned that Xavier uses art to explore and express his emotions, and that when Rhys is feeling sad he does an activity he enjoys to help him feel better. They also learned that Rhys knows how to say “hello” in Japanese and Xavier’s favourite food is salad.
Finally, the children recorded some advice for The Week Junior Show, to help our listeners look after their own mental health. Hear what they said, and our own interview with Rhys and Xavier, at tinyurl.com/ TWJpod