WELLBEING

Cooking with Adam

Cooking with Adam will continue this term for the Year 5/6 students on Wednesday afternoons. The students have been excited and engaged during the sessions and producing yummy foods to share and enjoy. 

This term the Year 3/4 students will also begin cooking with Adam on a rotation every Thursday afternoon. As a family, you can enjoy the food they make as they will be bringing it home to share.

Big thank you to Adam, who has been organising and running the sessions with classroom teacher present. 

UPCOMING Parent Seminar  led by someone who struggled through it.

Dear Families,

I started Beautiful Minds because I wanted to help support young people going through what I have spent so many years struggling with. My crippling anxiety which was eventually diagnosed as agoraphobia, took years from my life.The Daily Mail covered a story on my agoraphobia and detailed the the full year I spent voluntarily locked up in my bedroom, too terrified to engage with the outside world. I remember having a weekly challenge with my beautiful father who would come home from work and we would try and see if I could walk out of my bedroom, out of the front door and to our yellow post box in the garden. Most nights I never made it and I would retreat back into my safe space, tears rolling down my face, feeling absolutely gutted, full of shame for the inability to complete such basic tasks.I bounced around from psychologist to psychologist, sitting on old couches, nodding, smiling and being made to feel like more of a failure as their talk therapy did nothing to help me. I was certain I must be totally broken for my parents to have signed me up with a psychologist.

I realised in one of my many, many sessions, that talking about the past was helpful to a degree but I needed more. I needed to understand exactly what this beast anxiety was, why it had taken over my mind and my life and how could I get my power back?I started to read, listen to and study everything I could possibly get my hands on. I listened to meditation every day, I studied counselling and psychology, I read self-help books, took courses and became completely obsessed with understanding anxiety and panic disorders. My 27 year journey with anxiety has actually been a blessing. I have learnt how to manage the feelings and have healed myself with some wonderful tools, daily rituals, certain foods and books and podcasts that gave me so much hope in those very dark days. These days the anxiety has gone but once in a while, it will pop its head up and say hi! It never completely goes away but it can be managed so you hardly ever see it.I don't share my story very often but after we all endured the Pandemic, I started speaking to so many parents who have children as young as 8, who are in the grips of anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety and panic disorders.There are little people who should be running around without a care in the world and they are struck by so much fear. They are struggling at school, they are struggling with connecting with others and their beautiful world is a challenging one.I want to work with these kids.I want them to hear my story, learn my tools and have my 100% support. I want them to know that they are not crazy and this will pass. These feelings can be managed and they have a opportunity to look at fear as - "Face Everything And Rise."I have created the exact program I wish I had when I was in the grips of my anxiety journey. This is an introductory program that I will deliver via live stream. One hour packed with everything a young person needs to know to better understand their anxiety and to mange it better. Places are very limited.

I look forward to working with your young person.

With love,

Marina Passalaris CEO & Founder, Beautiful Minds

Structure Play at Lunchtimes

This term we have reintroduced structured play during some times with our Learning Support Officers.

Tuesday - CRAFT  (juniors)

Wednesday - CRAFT (seniors)

Friday - OutsideDance Party

Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) On School Students with Disability