Pupils' designs see willow sculpture crafted at Daventry Country Park to mark Children’s Mental Health
18 July 2024
A willow sculpture (pictured) has been installed at Daventry Country Park based on two winning students designs to reflect Children’s Mental Health week.
Hosted by Healthy Schools, Public Health team as part of a competition which took place last year to mark Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, students were invited to take part in an art competition on ‘what does good mental health look like’ to them. Schools who signed up, received a free willow weaving workshop during the week where students got involved and got to put their creativity to practice.
Winning designs from two students at Barby Primary and East Hunsbury Primary in West Northants have now been crafted into one amazing willow sculpture by artist, Debs Jones and is located at Daventry Country Park which showcases how connecting with nature can support positive mental wellbeing in children and young people. The sculpture installation can be found by using google maps or using what three words: shortens.catching.liberty
Suman Bedi, Headteacher at Barby CE Primary School, said: “This was a great opportunity for the pupils at Barby as we were really looking at wellbeing and mental health with our children and how we can help, how the children can help and what we can do to ensure we are always mentally healthy. Also, we have been discussing how we can communicate and support each other to ensure that we can always ensure that our actions don’t impact others negatively. The children loved doing this and we really loved the entries that came in. We are really proud of the winners as they can hopefully have long lasting impact on their school peers and now their local community.”
Kathryn Pennington, Headteacher at East Hunsbury Primary School, said: “Here at East Hunsbury Primary, we know that school isn’t just about reading, maths and writing – for us, it is about educating the whole child and children’s mental and physical health is really important to us. Each year, we take part in Children’s Mental Health week and we jumped at the chance to participate in the: ‘What does good mental health look like?’ competition. Children across the school got involved and wonderful, important discussions were had. We were then thrilled to learn that one of our pupils had been selected to be the joint winner and were incredibly proud of them. We can’t wait to visit the sculpture and to continue our work on Mental Health.”
Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Adult Care, Public Health and Regulatory Services at West Northamptonshire Council said: “This was a great idea from our Healthy Schools team to get our young people involved in a creative task whilst thinking about how connecting with nature benefits their mental wellbeing.
“Talking about mental wellbeing is so important and this was an engaging way to start these conversations with students. A big well done and thank you to all who took part, there were many incredible entries – and the winning designs were truly well deserved as the final sculpture looks brilliant!”