Mental Health in Primary Schools (MHiPS)

Mental Health Wellbeing Leader: Joe Quinn 

Skateboarding Mental Health Program

Year Six students from Sacred Heart School have combined with Corryong College students in a 6 week skateboarding mental health program.  The program is offered by Al's Skate Co in Wodonga and Al takes the students through a series of mental health and wellbeing lessons while teaching them to skateboard. 

Below are some of the reflections of the students from Sacred Heart School. 

Levi

I’m part of the Year Six Al’s Skate Co and Mental Health Program. It has helped me learn about mental health and skateboarding. Al and his team are really helpful. When my teachers told me we were going skateboarding, I was not too excited because I wasn’t really interested in skateboarding and thought it was boring. But now because I went and challenged myself, I had so much fun. Thank you Al for all your hard work, support and dedication to youth mental health. We look forward to doing the rest of your program with you.

Katie

I have enjoyed skateboarding. I have been going up ramps. I love how the fresh air gets in my face and we can learn from mistakes. We have been learning that you don’t always ‘get it’ right away. A really good lesson that l've been taught is that it is OK to make mistakes.  

Matilda

I am a year six doing lessons with Al’s Skate Co. The things I have loved most about the program is that Al and his team have a lot of humor and are very kind. They were supporting us when going down a ramp or the bar so we wouldn’t have a stack. The thing I loved most about the lessons was the thrill of going down the half pipe. I had a lot of fun doing this and can’t wait for our lesson in Albury at Al’s Skate Co.

Simone

In skateboarding we also learned about mental health, along with skateboarding. In recent weeks, we learned about blue lights and stimulants that keep you up when you try to go to bed. Today we learned how to rail grind and how to get on ramps and how to drop in from a ramp.

WELLBEING

'Behaviour is Communication'

Sacred Heart Class teachers are focusing on supporting the students with classroom procedures and expectations. Each class has implemented new positive behaviour strategies, to help students be more aware of what they can achieve individually and as a class group.

The poster below helps us reflect on and understand what might be going on of a child when they demonstrate irregularities in their behaviours. 

What is it that you don't see, when your child shows different behaviours?