We are excited to announce that six new Key Stage 3 lessons have been added to the BrainWaves wellbeing curriculum and these are now available to download for free! 

These lessons, tailored for students aged 11-14, are founded on the principles of positive psychology. They aim to empower young people to take charge of their wellbeing while fostering a sense of optimism for change through practical applications provided in each session.

Here is an overview of each new lesson:

• Challenging Negative Thoughts: This lesson helps students recognise and address negative thought patterns. They will learn to identify, challenge, and transform these thoughts through strategies like positive self-talk, self-compassion, and positive affirmations. One teacher commented on this lesson saying, “This is a really great lesson! It is very informative and pitched to a suitable level with great examples, which will get students thinking.”
• Making Change Happen: This lesson explores the common desire among young people to change certain aspects of their lives and recognises how they may feel disempowered without the tools required to act on this. It introduces Prochaska’s ‘five stages of change’ model and discusses setting SMART objectives to reach their goals.
• Helping Others for Better Wellbeing: Here, students discover how assisting others can positively influence their own wellbeing. The lesson emphasises that acts of kindness, giving, and volunteering can foster a sense of purpose, self-worth, and positive emotions.
• Managing Worry: In this lesson, students learn what worry is and how it can impact them. They will explore various strategies to cope with low-level worries, including using a worry tree, developing problem-solving skills, and applying distraction and breathing techniques to let go of unwanted stress.
• Sleep, Screens, and Mood: This lesson highlights the relationship between sleep, mood, and wellbeing, focusing on the amount of sleep teenagers typically need. It also examines how using screens late at night can interfere with their ability to fall asleep. One teacher commented, “This is a really good, informative and fast-paced lesson. Students will go away with a key understanding of how much sleep they need, things that affect their sleep and what’s within their control to change.”
• Social Media and the dangers of perfection: This lesson addresses the dangers of perfectionism reinforced by social media and teaches students how to protect their self-esteem against the barrage of edited and filtered images. They will be encouraged to develop a healthy understanding of what is real versus fake on social media and take steps to curate a more positive online experience.

All six lessons are now available via the BrainWaves education website.

These lessons were created with support from The Berry Street Foundation. Your donations and support are vital to this groundbreaking research. They enable us to explore the complexities of adolescent mental health and create effective, accessible solutions to enhance youth wellbeing.

If you would like to support BrainWaves, please visit: https://brainwaveshub.org/get-involved/donate/