Enrichment and Wellbeing
At West Kirby School and College, emphasis is placed on providing extra curricular enrichment activities in order to extend learning, social and emotional skills, as well as mental health wellbeing.
"The wellbeing and life skills adventures activities provides an opportunity for students to celebrate success whilst participating in a range of community based creative and engaging activities." National Autism Society, 2019
Our school has a 'Pupil wellbeing session' each Friday afternoon, enabling our young people to have the opportunity to take part in a wellbeing activity. Under normal circumstances, there are normally 10 choices on offer per week. These range from indoor low stimulus activities to quite physical activities, such as Crabbing, Art, Adventure Dock, and Climbing. Some vary from week to week, for example different sporting activities.
At the end of the Autumn and Summer terms we have a 'Big wellbeing' where we dedicate the day to wellbeing, for example ‘Chill Factor', 'Climbing Hanger', Ice Skating and Cinema trips. At at the end of the Summer term we have a whole activity day for our pupils to enjoy. Some of the choices on offer are 'Water World', 'Blackpool Pleasure Beach', Fishing, Mountain Biking and 'Manley Mere'.
Our focus on pupils' wellbeing provides our young people the opportunity to develop new interests which could be engaged in out of school. It allows them to experience being in different areas of the school and working with different staff who they may not ordinarily work with. They provide pupils with various opportunities to develop their social interactions and communication skills within activities of their choosing.
As a school we're pro-active in encouraging our young people to step outside their comfort zone and try something new, whether it be in the classroom or out. One of our most popular days is our whole school sponsored walk.
As part of our rewards system, individual classes will have opportunities for extra-curricular trips such as 'Manley Mere', Cinema trips, Bowling, and Crazy Golf. These are also valuable social and emotional learning experiences within a community setting.
