Park Academy’s Happiness Calendar: Daily activities around kindness & gratitude boosted mental wellbeing of students during lockdown

Students at an Uxbridge secondary were challenged with daily activities to boost their mental health during lockdown.

With pupils returning to school this week, Park Academy has revealed its students were kept motivated throughout time home schooling with monthly ‘Action for Happiness’ plans.

Running through the months of January and February, tasks included creating a list of things you are grateful for, performing a kind act for somebody else, dancing along to your favourite song, helping with a household job and making a conscious effort to look for the good in others.

January’s happiness calendar.

February’s happiness calendar.

Hayley Batten, English Coordinator and organiser of the lockdown calendar, told the Hillingdon Times: “The aim was to encourage positivity during such a tough time. After the last lockdown, it was evident that we needed to prioritise the mental well-being of young people and our students at Park.”

“The calendar also helped, when students disclosed that they were finding lockdown difficult, to give them something to focus on and hopefully increase positivity.”

Students were encouraged to share pictures and videos of themselves carrying out the daily tasks on their Google Classrooms for their peers to see.  

Miss Batten explained: “I hope it helped the students. I’m looking forward to getting back to school and speaking to them more about what they did.”

To further motivate students and promote positivity, staff also took part in the daily challenges and shared videos of themselves in action for students to see.

Miss Batten said that the lockdown calendar also helped with the wellbeing of staff too by reminding them to always make time in their day to do something positive and uplifting.