The foundations of wellbeing are at the heart of everything we do at St Andrews Bangkok. We place high importance and attention on our students’ mental health. By openly exploring and teaching wellbeing, face-to-face and in our virtual school, we create an environment that ensures our students thrive academically, socially and emotionally.
At St Andrews International School Bangkok, we believe in providing a safe, happy, supportive and stimulating environment where all the needs of the individual learner are met. This means that a student’s wellbeing is balanced along with academic results, no matter if learning is taking place within a physical classroom or a virtual one. By establishing a solid partnership between parents, teachers and students, our students feel supported in their desire to realise their full potential while also possessing a strong understanding of preserving their overall wellbeing.
Our Health and Wellbeing Coordinator, alongside our Counselling team, extends existing curriculum programmes, such as PSHE, to enhance student health and wellbeing, resilience and the development of life skills.
Our Physical Education sessions and comprehensive Extracurricular Activities programme gives our students access to a full range of activities and resources designed to keep their minds and bodies healthy, particularly while they were studying from home in a virtual school environment.
The combination leads to greater physical and psychological empowerment while also providing students with the necessary tools to enjoy and appreciate the great moments in life and ‘bounce back’ in times of adversity and develop mental toughness.
Mental Toughness
What is mental toughness? It’s the way we deal with, cope and handle adversity and training students how to cope with the difficult moments and emotionally regulate can make all the difference in both their social and emotional health and have a great impact on their learning journey.
“The road to the to the top is never smooth.”
- Look people in the eye, the eyes tell it all!
- Ask questions, ask for clarification, people are afraid to ask questions for fear of looking stupid.
- Write out a goal for the day, if you write down want you want to accomplish, you’ll achieve it.
- Do a work-out, endorphins are mood boosters and your mental health is linked to your physical health.
- Try to wake up 30 minutes earlier or failing that do something productive in the first 30 minutes of your day. Psychologists have proven that a simple task like making your bed can lead people to be x5 productive on those days.
- Turn off your phone, this is the toughest one for everybody because technology has become an addiction for us all. Try to be present during meal times or watching movies without the constant distractions your phone offers.
- Find a mentor, every child needs a mentor or emotional guide who isn’t directly involved with them emotionally, this could be a peer, a teacher, a school counsellor, whoever it is find someone you can reach out to when you feel at your lowest.
- Listen to someone, often when someone speaks we merely start talking about ourselves. Instead just listen and put yourself in their situation.
- Forgive someone, remember resentment is like drinking poison, holding a grudge hurts us more than the other person, learn to let things go.
- Be grateful, when we are grateful for the smallest things in life it has the ability to literally change our brain chemistry and improve our mental health by focusing on small things that makeus happy rather than worrying about things we cannot change.
Some of these action steps will come easier than others, but our mental toughness will grow every day the more we use these simple steps. Here at St Andrews Bangkok we have a team of highly trained counsellors to assist students and guide them through their learning journey and a team of learning specialists who are at hand to catch those students as they may fall.
If you want to hear more about St Andrews Bangkok our school is open for in person tours now as well as a virtual school tours, contact us HERE
