We broke the World Record!
On the 3rd October 2024, Year 3,4,5 and 6 gathered in the Chapel and participated in a Guiness World Record Attempt to break the record for the Largest Poetry Lesson (Mutilple Venues), hosted by Laura Mucha.
Laura shared this news with us . . .
“I am VERY excited to inform you that Guinness World Records has APPROVED our record attempt for Largest Poetry Lesson (Multi Venues).
WOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!
The formal record is for 43,516 people (from around 500 schools), which is enough to fill a football stadium!
More than 125,000 young people from over 1,000 schools took part in the lesson, but many couldn’t be counted due to the VERY strict Guinness World Records requirements. But every single person counted in terms of creating the poem and being part of our record-breaking event and community.”
Children’s Mental Health Week
Storytelling can boost wellbeing in children
Increasing empathy, memory and active listening skills.
Listening to someone telling or reading a story builds active listening skills and helps with memory development.
Hearing the stories of other real people or fictional characters can also increase empathy, helping children relate to their peers and the adults around them.
Boosting mood
Whether it is from being entertained by a story,or finding comfort in relating to a character or narrative, listening to stories can boost mood.
Writing their own stories helps children explore their imaginations and potentially express their feelings, which can also lift their moods.
Practising mindfulness
Listening to or writing stories involves concentration on the world that’s being created by the narrative. This helps focus the mind and allows an escape from other worries that they might be experiencing.
Increasing self-esteem and confidence
Writing their own stories and telling/reading/performing them to others can help boost children’s confidence, as can recognising themselves, their feelings, experiences and achievements in story characters.
Making difficult conversations easier
As a parent, conversations about mental health, relationships and other personal issues can be difficult to raise with children. Being able to discuss what a character in a story has experienced can be a way into those conversations and can help a child to open up about their own emotions and worries.
Offering options for challenges they may face
Stories can provide children with strategies to address challenges they encounter in their lives.
If they find themselves in a difficult situation that they remember hearing/reading about in a story, they can think about what the character did and how that turned out.
Source: The power of storytelling in improving children’s mental health and wellbeing
Within the Prep Library, we have a huge selection of books which can support understanding emotions. These include:
