Creative Wellness incorporates many of these aspects including cooking and art.
During cooking sessions learners and tutors work together in our kitchen area to create a range of dishes – from tasty nutritious meals learners can replicate at home to delicious bakes and puddings.
This is an amazing way to build cooking and life-skills, confidence, resilience and problem solving. It can also be an excellent way to develop friendships, teamwork and collaboration.
The sessions can often be linked to our wider curriculum – be that topics such as Eurovision, learning about different countries and cultures through cuisine, awareness days – such as GRT history month, Pride, Hello Yellow for mental health and recipes which reflect learners own interests and experience.
Cooking for well-being also develops elements of our other core curriculum – such as maths through weights and measures, english with recipe reading and interpreting and science looking at changing states.
We also teach learners about healthy eating, nutrition, food origins, processes and food groups.
Therapeutic arts and crafts are a hugely important element of our enrichment activities we offer learners.
These activities can really support our own sense of mental health and well-being through creative projects and artistic expression.
These sessions also allow for a more relaxed and pressure free atmosphere, enabling discussion and the development of relationship with staff and peers working alongside each other.
Art also provides us with an ideal medium to explore other curriculum activities and cultures. These can be linked to some of the wider awareness days concepts and activities we explore as a school – such as gender stereotypes, black history month, Holocaust memorial day anti-bullying week and mental health awareness – where we made anxiety monsters and worry dolls.
These sessions will also explore art history, movements and cultures – helping to position different art styles and mediums in the wider world and cultural environment.
