Nice November: A Month of Gratitude at Queen Anne’s School
In November 2018, Queen Anne’s School launched the latest installment of the BrainCanDo Programme: Nice November: A Month of Gratitude.
Launched in assembly by Dr Fancourt, Head of Psychology at Queen Anne’s School and Research Lead for BrainCanDo, Nice November aimed to encourage students and staff to make a conscious effort to express gratitude and be more thankful every day of the month. Dr Fancourt explains further:
As a part of our BrainCanDo programme at Queen Anne’s School, we have been researching into the effect of gratitude on wellbeing and community cohesion. All that we have learned suggests that the act of expressing thanks is linked with higher ratings of subjective wellbeing and can impact upon the degree to which an individual feels connected within their communities. Essentially we are asking the question: Does giving thanks and being grateful improve individual wellbeing and social connectedness in school? This is what Nice November aims to find out.
All Queen Anne’s students received gratitude journals, and were encouraged to use them to reflect upon their day. The journals were full of positive and inspirational quotes, stress-relieving colouring pages, and each day provided a space for girls to write something that they are thankful for.
Girls and staff were able to place their thank you cards into the Nice November post box located in each house, or pop them into the post-box in the entrance to the Sixth Form Centre. During the course of November, individual thank you cards which were particularly lovely, funny or unusual were displayed digitally on the screens around the school or on various noticeboards.
Both staff and students were extremely impressed by the journals, and there was a noticeable change in attitude and positivity spreading through the corridors of Queen Anne’s School.