Member resources

Here we have a collection of resources for primary school work on self-awareness and emotion regulation (relevant to the Good to be Me SEAL theme)

This comprehensive pack from Northern Ireland contains lessons and accompanying resources for work on some of the difficult feelings that can arise within relationships between people - jealousy, r

To help a class bond, particulary at the start of the new school year, try these primary lessons and activities.

These fabulous free resources come from the Tower Hamlets Oracy Hub and Tower Hamlets Education Partnership.

Usw these dicebreakers for a fun activity in small groups to bond a new class. Students work in groups, taking turns to roll a dice then answer a question.

Twenty simple exercises to help children stay calm – a collection of breathing and relaxation exercises, with instructions and video links

 Here you will find

A booklist from the National Literacy Trust of favourite books about big changes (fiction , graphic novels, non-fiction and poetry)

This is a booklet of short activities to promote wellbeing, for children (primary and secondary) to use at school or at home-  mindfulness, gratitude etc

We liked this secondary Place2Be lesson about how we communicate, especially through non-verbal signals and facial expression. It will get students thinking about how they communicate online.

Thse poems about the experience of migration and being a refugee are very useful for work on empathy and valuing difference.

This provides instructions and readings for a writing exercise that helps pupils see exam stress as a positive that can help them perform at their best. Could be used before GCSEs or SATs.

A simple board game which explores common scenarios that children may encounter in their day-to-day life at home or at school, and the resilience they may need for tackling them.

These are nice Advent Calendars to use with children and staff in December- created by Young Minds

There are two lovely copiables in this primary resource- a 'hand' for children to record who they can reach out to when they need to talk, and a Reach Out Rainbow for them to colour in segments of,

These nice PowerPoint lessons from Votes for Schools get primary and secondary pupils debating the role of bystanders in bullying- Do bystanders make bullying worse?

Here we have some Twinkl resources for KS1 and for KS2, and a very useful Worrying about War resource from Sarah Johnson at Phoenix Education.

Social Story framework to use with primary children to help them remember what they should do when they are about to ‘lose it’.

This is a nice lesson idea from Voice 21 for primary pupil, combining oracy with work on understanding and managing feelings. Childen can work in pairs on the activities...

Here we have some lovely lessons from Voice 21 to help children learn the skills of listening with empathy.

Templates using the concept of superheroes to encourage children to explore their own super powers, qualities and talents. There are resources for ages 4-5, 5-7 and 7-11

Really good lesson materials for Y6, from Public Health England on wellbeing (self-care).

This set of mental health resources from the Anna Freud Centre is for  9-11 year olds . There is an animation which you will find here

Here we have:

 a lesson based on the book a Huge Bag of Worries

an anxiety thermometer from the Anna Freud Centre  - useful for 1-1 work with children

Here we have worksheets which help children set a goal, break it down into small steps and overcome obstacles along the way. With thanks to Mentally Healthy Schools.

This is a really engaging primary board game about resilience, created by the Anna Freud Centre.

• Here we have  a fantastic KS1 lesson sequence, with resources, based on the picture book Ravi’s Roar, that combines oracy with work on understanding and managing angry feelings.

In this collection we have:

• A primary assembly about connectedness from Place2Be
• A piece-of-the puzzle primary assembly about connectedness and belonging, with jigsaw piece, from Mentally Healthy Schools/Anna Freud Centre
• Two truths and a lie… eight great getting-to-know you activities for secondary and upper primary
• Y7 team building favourites
• Getting to know you activities from the PSHE Association

Here we have:

A nice resource sheet for Reception/KS1 - helping the Colour Monster fill jars by drawing or writing things that make the child feel certain emotions

Some fabulous Colour Monster self regulation tools , for primary children to use to identify how they are feeling

A simple daily emotion tracker for primary, from the Anna Freud Centre. Can be used to help children identify and scale their feelings over the course of a week, at different times of the day and in different situations. .

This is a collection of resources on the theme of confidence.

For primary we have

- A self-belief assembly

- 'Superhero me': a resource that helps children think about their strengths

- A rebuild and recover resource to use with individual children to help them reframe negative thoughts

For primary and secondary there is:

-A 'challenging unhelpful thoughts' resource, again focused on overcoming negativity

-A really useful seven-session plan for 1-1 work with students who lack confidence

This assembly plan and lesson resources were created as part of the Mentally Healthy Schools World Mental Health Day 2020 resources, but can be used any time for work on diversity and difference. There are lesson plans for three different primary age groups.

You will really like these! Class DoJo have partnered with Yale, Stanford, and Harvard universities to create some really useful primary videos, discussion guides, and activities where students will:

• Manage powerful emotions through mindfulness

• Tackle self-talk and positive thinking

• Learn how to take on big challenges

• Explore moods and attitudes

• Discover the power of growth mindset

Find them at

https://ideas.classdojo.com/

You just need to create an account first if you haven't got one.

Devised by teachingwithmrso  (thank you!) , these are useful cards to cut out and laminate. Based on self-regulation theory, they are designed to help children identify an activity they can do to help calm themselves. By choosing a card themselves, they take responsibility for their own feelings and develop self-efficacy – the belief they can exercise control over their lives and learning

Also here is a nice template for a calm-dwn plan.

We loved these Young Minds 'Find your feet' transition resources. They include films of young people discussing  moving on and  some great 'How to make friends hacks' with Beano . Find them here 

There is

- a nice activity for any age group on what can keep us going when things are tough

- a ‘3 good things’ primary and secondary activity on positive thinking

- a nice ’balancing act’ activity and ‘find your balance ‘ image , also focused on staying positive

- a printable worksheet, best used in small groups or 1-1 settings. Pupils must finish the sentences ‘I am, I can, I have’, to help them talk about positive features in themselves

- a secondary lesson about resilience, with film clips and emoticon counters for a snakes and ladders game

This toolkit from Mentally Healthy Schools has primary activities, lesson plans and assembly plans to help children to think about who they are as a person, recognise what they are good at, identify positive things about themselves, learn from their experiences and set goals.

One 20-30 minute activity helps encourage staff and pupils to think about their aspirations for the year ahead, especially in relation to mental health and wellbeing.

Here you will find:

Some classroom ideas for building a sense of community

Lessons in empathy: a nice primary lesson idea about welcoming a newcomer

Space Tortoise- a book to use for primary work on welcoming strangers

The Suitcase - A lovely picture book about kindness to strangers

A great primary/early secondary assembly Stop bullying with a tube of tooothpaste

If you are working on the theme of change, why not focus on the experiences of refuges and migrants? We've uploaded a colection of resources here. Also useful for any work on empathy, diversity and belonging.

Why should adults get all the self-help books? There are also lovely reads and activities for youngsters who need some extra support to feel relaxed, mindful, grateful, inspired and happy. Have a look at this selection of 13 books to children feel more calm and mindful, at https://www.booktrust.org.uk/booklists/c/calming-mindfulness/

For secondary students, follow these links to find a couple of useful True Tube films about stress and feeling down KS3 https://www.truetube.co.uk/film/stress-bag?tab=film KS3 and 4 https://www.truetube.co.uk/film/feeling-down?tab=film

Ideas on helping older primary and secondary pupiils to understand why we sometimes use hate speech-speech which attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender.

Here you'll find a moving video, a secondary PowerPoint resource created by pupils for pupils, and a bunch of nice activity ideas based on children's books.

A pack of teaching resources to support work on the book by R.J. Palacio - Wonder, adapted for younger readers as We’re All Wonders. Recently turned into a film starring Julia Roberts, it tells the story of a boy called Auggie with a facial abnormality who struggles to make friends. The simpler version confine itself to how people stare at him and say unkind things behind his back, and how that makes him feel. In the more complex original, his parents have to shield him from this by educating him at home, but now he is about to start school and dreading it.

You may not have taken part in the summer Great Get Together event to celebrate the life of Jo Cox MP, who was killed because of her beliefs. But you can still use the nice classrooom activities from the resource pack devised by the Jo Cox Foundation, which help childen learn that they have lots in common with others they may feel different from. We've uploaded the primary and secondary packs here.

You'll also like this film 'The DNA journey- we are more alike than we think'- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyaEQEmt5ls.

Robins aren't just for Christmas. The Michael Morpurgo Coming Home story, read by the author at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RslbtKSrrns is just brilliant for helping children to explore ways of not giving up in the face of difficulties.

You can find  lesson plans to go with the story at https://www.waitrose.com/content/dam/waitrose/Christmas%202015/Midnight…

There is a nice KS2 literacy lesson plan with a dilemma activity that is perfect for SEAL, plus story mappping and exploring how the robin feels inside.

Here we have first some new planning additions to the members’ resources area of the website. We have some Y4 medium term SEAL planning from Jo Taylor, and from Fred Daynes (thank you Fred) PowerPoints of the Y4 and 5 Getting on lessons from the national resources.

For work on friendship, for the Foundation Stage we have a PowerPoint about how to be a SuperFriend, and a set of Reception/KS1 cards for children to fill in after the class have read Tony Ross’ I want a friend (uploaded by Angela Scrivens – thank you!)

Schools in England are required to actively promote fundamental British values to their pupils, both in lessons and in extracurricular activities. The values are defined as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. Under the Prevent Duty, schools must also actively protect children from the dangers of extremism.

I'm posting these resources for a very personal reason. My twin grandchildren lost their mother to cancer when they were five. They were in their first year at school. Every year issues crop up - this year around mothers' day. So this is a plea for all of you to include work on bereavement and loss in your everyday SEAL/PSHE work, even though it feels difficult.

For primary we have first an interesting powerpoint from Studenth (thank you) introducing pupils to the concept of reflective practice, through writing a review of the year and New Year's resolutions. It takes them through four common steps of reflective practice - recall, evaluation, analysis and forming an action plan. Aimed at upper KS2, this could be adapted for younger KS2 pupils. Plus there's another New Year resolution slideshow,with VCOP!

For primary we have the Value of Friendship lesson with activities including friendship bingo and giving compliments, from avatarcrossy70 - big thanks. It comes with a WORD resource for the bingo game.

Here we have a nice new idea for creating a classroom charter, and a variation on the charter - a class manifesto, with a teacher's example to help children get the idea.

These lessons from The Ophelia Project in US help girls learn about 'relational aggression' -  the subtle tactics of social exclusion, spreading rumours and threats to withdraw friendship that are so common amongst girls. There are 6 lessons for each age group.

These resources help children develop empathy. For primary schools there is a link to a Sesame Street film illustrating what empathy means, a lovely lesson called Empathy in a shoe box, and a Pass the Face circle activity to help children read social cues. There's an Empathy prints cut-out for literacy or history ( contributed to TES website by Temperance - thank you): students explore how a character might be feeling by imagining they are in their shoes and fill in the shoe outlines.