We are delighted to now be a ‘My Happy Mind’ school where every class learns about good mental health. In assembly we were introduced to Team HAP, a character that represents our brain. H stands for hippocampus; the part of our brain that stores memories. A stands for amygdala; the part of our brain that helps us when we are in danger and responsible for our fight, flight or freeze response. P stands for prefrontal cortex which is our thinking brain; helping us to make choices, concentrate and solve problems. We learnt that id the amygdala thinks we are in danger, then the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex go to sleep.
In class children followed up this learning and found out that sometimes the amygdala thinks we’re in danger when we’re not! This means we need to do some ‘happy breathing’ to wake up the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex to get Team HAP working as a team again.
Children in Year 1 – 6 have a journal that they reflect in after each lesson. We can’t wait to learn more about our brains and to practice our happy breathing if we are feeling worried or anxious.
