The first aid training enabled us to receive a certificate from Mini First Aid that proved we attended first aid training. During this we covered CPR & AED (Arresting External Bleeding), Breaks, Burns, Choking, Bleeding, Asthma, and Allergic Reactions. By participating in this session, we were able to gain knowledge of what to do in different scenarios and feel more confident in our actions to help another person.

Next, in yoga, we were given an hour to relax after the build up to exams. We were able to relieve stress and were given a safe space to do this. Our session was led by Jo Yoga, who made us all feel very comfortable and confirmed that we shouldn’t try to get our legs above our heads if we know we can’t do it! Throughout the yoga session, we noticeably began to feel a lot calmer, and we were able to release the stress in our body through fun and new yoga movements, like the one where we put our knees on our elbows and flipped upside down! Daisy in Year 11 even said that after the workshop she felt ‘so positive and happy within herself’!

In the subsequent session we were given the opportunity to focus on ‘UniFrog’ and this was led by our teachers. In this hour, we looked at the different career types. For example, there was a single-track career which was where an employee begins at the bottom of their ‘ladder’ and works their way up through promotion and seniority. We also investigated different careers we were interested in and began exploring universities and options for after sixth form and during our A-levels.

Next followed an engaging session with Jo Knight from Lincolnshire Police, for which we began with reviewing our general knowledge on sexual harassment. We were given true and false statements to discuss, several laws to demonstrate the importance of consent in a relationship, and a debate at the end which split the class into two sides to argue for and against the statement given. The debate was very informative as we were put onto a side which we may not have personally agreed with but were tasked to support. Jo Knight made sure that at the beginning she highlighted the mature subjects we would be covering, for example, consent, sexual harassment, intimate photographs, and the laws concerning the sending and receiving of unconsented intimate photographs. By the end of this session, we felt that we were able to confidently identify, challenge and access support for sexual harassment.

Finally, we regrouped in the main hall for a talk by Luke Askew from ‘Aim a Little Higher’. This motivational speech was presented very informally, which we were not used to - but were definitely not complaining about! Throughout his speech, Luke made us all laugh and told us about his school life and how much his mindset affected how he behaved towards his grades. This hour was excellent because we all felt relaxed and, despite being given a motivational speech about our GCSE’s coming up and what we want to do afterwards, we were all able to compare the struggles he faced in school to our own experiences. This was extremely powerful because we listened to what he did to overcome these obstacles.

Overall, the PSHE day was the perfect end to a fortnight of mocks as we were able to participate in and enjoy such beneficial and engaging sessions - even when we thought we had little brain energy left!

Alice Bailey, Year 11