Tomlinscote Time to Talk Senior School, Frimley

I am the named School Nurse for Tomlinscote Senior School. I provide a monthly lunchtime drop in session for the student as well as seeing people on a 1:1 basis when required. As a team we try and support our local senior schools with lunchtime health promotion stands where possible. In February myself and our new emotional wellbeing nurse attended Tomlinscote to support ‘Time to Talk’ day. During the session we had the laptop playing Time to Talk video clips outlining the importance of just talking to each other and taking the time to really listen. We had fortune teller games made up which we showed the students how to use. They enjoyed using these. We also gave out free tea bags as the message was to have a cup of tea and a chat with someone. We had ‘would you rather’ resources and games to handout and to play with the students if they so wished. The tea bags and resources went down well and the session was well received. The younger students appeared more able to approach the stand so I made sure I went upstairs in the lunch hall to see the Year 11s and hand out some resources at the same time. Overall I felt the session was extremely worthwhile as the overriding message with everyone’s mental health is to talk and be heard.

by Katy Murphy (community staff nurse, School Nursing) and Hannah Johnson(emotional wellbeing nurse)