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Health Day 2010
On Thursday 25th February, Ridgeway staff and students took part in a whole school Health Day event.
Visitors from Brook, Response, Sahir House, the Wirral Road Safety team and NHS Extended Health Services in Schools joined a team of school nurses and Ridgeway staff to deliver sessions on a wide range of health-related issues.
Year 7 pupils began the day with a session on puberty led by Ridgeway’s school nurse Sister Sarah Broadbent. They learnt about physical and emotional changes that take place during puberty. The remaining sessions were made up of a friendships and self esteem workshop, exotic fruit tasting with the DT Faculty, fitness with the PE department and a poster competition.
Year 8 students also took part in exotic fruit tasting and fitness as well as sessions on the effects of smoking on the body and services provided by the NHS.
In addition, a session delivered by the school nurses provided a gentle introduction to contraception. A particular favourite amongst the Year 8 students was the First Aid Safari during which they had to move around a series of stations to find out about basic First Aid from Ridgeway’s own qualified First Aiders.
Year 9 students were lucky enough to spend half of the day with Brook, working on their Bitesize programme. They completed a range of fun but informative games and activities about contraception, sexually transmitted infections, sexuality, homelessness, drug abuse and alcohol awareness. Students were engaged throughout the sessions and their feedback about this programme was really positive.
In the other 3 sessions, Year 9 worked with the school nurses in a “Contraception and STIs” workshop, completed a more in-depth study of the effects of drugs with the Science team and watched a presentation by Sahir House, a local HIV and AIDS charity.
Year 10 were visited by the Road Safety Team who reinforced the importance of wearing seatbelts and offered students advice on staying safe on the roads. Feed back from students was that this session was highly informative and would have a big impact on their future actions. Year 10 also worked with the Science team to study the effects of drugs and the possible consequences of taking them just once. They were particularly shocked and moved by the Leah Bett’s story.
Their day was completed with a visit from Sahir House (HIV/AIDS charity) an alcohol awareness session with a focus on how to help a friend who has had too much to drink, and a session on basic First Aid skills delivered by Year Managers.
Year 11 began the day with a film about domestic abuse called “Spiralling”. This was followed by a workshop in which students discussed what kinds of behaviour are acceptable and unacceptable and what they expect from a relationship. Students later studied the effects of drugs on the body and took part in an alcohol awareness session, learning about the short and long term effects of alcohol on the body and how to help a friend in an emergency after drinking too much alcohol.
A “Stress and Relaxation” workshop helped them to recognise causes of personal stress and develop strategies for dealing with this and a visit from Sahir House once again raised awareness of HIV and AIDS.
The day was really successful and feedback from staff, students and visitors has been really positive. Thanks to all the visitors and Ridgeway staff for delivering outstanding sessions and to students whose engagement and attitude to learning was excellent.
Last Modified: 31/03/2010
