Students make Happy Heads audio diaries

Three students from the Charlton school in Wellington have had their audio diaries featured in the BBC's "Happy Heads" project

As part of the Happy Heads campaign designed to see how children are coping during the pandemic, the children were asked to document what was making them happy, what was driving them mad and whether they were getting enough social time. The audio diaries were designed to document young people and their different experiences of lockdown, sharing little snippets of their life.

Student Maya Griffiths from Year 10 said: "It was a great break from the repetitive, tedious routine of lockdown life, as well as that it helped me to realise the change quarantine has caused, also forcing us to accept our fears for the future.

"It made me realise my ability to sugar-coat and ignore negative aspects of quarantine, and enabled me to accept that life isn’t perfect, and it’s ok to share and acknowledge the sad and stressful emotions."

Andrew McNaughton, principal, said: "We have a commitment to promoting an environment where students can support not only their own emotional health and wellbeing, but also that of those around them. This is done in many ways across the whole school through PSHE lessons, form times discussions, wellbeing week and pastoral support.

"Students learn that it is good to talk about how they are feeling and how they can respond if someone talks to them about something that they are worried about, we are delighted our students have had the chance to take part in this opportunity with BBC and are proud that they are able to talk so openly about their wellbeing during periods of home learning.

"Who knows what will happen to the students’ lockdown diaries. Maybe one day post-Covid they will be discovered and give a valuable insight into the challenges children faced during lockdown."