Pause For Thought

Assistant Head Pupil Aspiration & Wellbeing Louise Troup, from Sherborne Girls School, tells us more about their Press Pause Day

Press Pause Day was just that – a day for the whole community to stop, relax, unwind, laugh, and reflect together, in the middle of our busiest term.

I think we would all agree that wellbeing is increasingly hard to achieve in our busy world, despite the constant focus on it in the media and in our institutions. That is why we took the courageous step of putting everything on ‘pause.’ We wanted to see what creating a truly genuine space in our working lives, and sharing it all together, could do for our pupils and staff.

So, how did it look? Well, that depended on everyone’s choices. Pupils and staff were given the opportunity to design their own perfect day, made up of six different sessions. On offer was an amazing range of activities, including creative workshops, inspiring talks, singing, cookery activities (or just the extraordinarily popular ‘tea-and-cake’ session), quiet reading, gentle colouring, yoga, mindfulness, dance and fitness classes, five and 10 kilometre runs, golf, or whole day walks for those who love exercise and the outdoors. Girls and staff also enjoyed a brilliant show by a stand-up comedian of Britain’s Got Talent fame, a dog psychologist, learnt how to self-hypnotise and experimented with Ballroom Dancing.

The day started with a much anticipated lie-in, followed by a delicious, healthy breakfast chosen by our Food and Wellbeing Prefect Lily in consultation with fellow Prefects Kitty and Asha. Our student Wellbeing Team, drawn from L6 and U6, was instrumental in helping design the day and stayed on hand to show all our wonderful guests and facilitators to their ‘stations’ and made sure the day was a success. They also designed beautiful ‘Press Pause Day’ spaces in House where the girls could snuggle up and wind down together.

House staff chose a special lunch for their girls and were, of course, helping to make the day happen by taking it in turns to stay at the helm. Many thanks to them, and to all the other support staff who sacrificed parts of their day to keep the School running smoothly and ensure our girls were safe and well looked after.

The day finished with a crazy and noisy sing-along Mamma Mia showing in the Gransden Hall. If music, laughter and friendship are indeed the ingredients for joy and happiness, I think we achieved the perfect recipe.

It is thanks to our Head, Dr Ruth Sullivan, that this extraordinary initiative happened. Let us hope we can ‘Press Pause’ every year.

See Sherborne Girl’s School online listing here.