This week has been full of heart-wrenching and devastating news. We hope that this post will give a little ray of sunshine to your week and will show the positive side of human nature.
We started off on a lovely positive note with the receipt of a wonderful letter from Rishi Sunak. He had heard about our Thrive school of excellence award and was congratulating us on the great work we are doing. We were so proud to receive it, especially given that it was completely unsolicited 
The Hubsters are busily preparing for and taking some parts of their functional skills exams. Sometimes we under-estimate what we are asking of them. They are dealing with the usual teenage internal battle of the surging hormones, while the brain is remodelling and pruning itself. During this time in the neurotypical teenage brain the amygdala grows in size and becomes more active, leading to rash and emotional behaviour. It can grow up to four times the size of an adult equivalent. For teenagers with Social emotional and mental health difficulties, this change on top of their existing struggles and possible childhood trauma is often intolerable. Then we ask them to sit exams, concentrate and ‘do their best’. Some days, doing their best is getting up and attending the Hub. We have one Hubster who walks in to us if he misses his taxi – a 3 mile walk! This is pure commitment.
To counter the stressful times, we ensure that the creativity continues during our Thrive sessions. We know that creative activities can increase positive emotions, lessen depressive symptoms, reduce stress, decrease anxiety, and even improve immune system functioning. The Hubsters made clay models of their own hands, these will be ready for painting next week. They painted their clay portraits from last week – we think you will agree that they are brilliant!
We ‘took our pencil for a walk’ – always a favourite as each outcome is different. These sessions are a delight to be a part of, each Hubster absorbed and engrossed with what they are doing.
And Roo came to visit! The Hubsters adore animals, we always see their caring, nurturing nature come out. They gave Roo a brush and lots of love and cuddles. We hope Roo can come back soon.
One Hubster has been busy coding with Scratch this week. He produced a short animation in which he coded every letter individually so that they moved at the same time, aswell as a moving character. He even recorded his own sound with it 
Thank you to all our readers who give us such positive feedback on the work we are doing with the Hubsters. We are very touched that you take the time to read and respond to our updates.
Same time, same place next week x
