EARLY Minds

EARLY Minds (Emotional Awareness and Resilience Learnt Young) is our mental health programme that we take into primary schools. Our sessions are age appropriate with a variety of activities to enable both children and adults to learn to talk about and take care of their own mental health and to better understand how to help those around them.

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Who is it for?

  • From early years to Year 6 including transitions to secondary school
  • Teachers and school staff
  • Parents and carers

EARLY Minds is inclusive and age-appropriate from Reception to Year 6.

We want children and adults to have the same knowledge and a shared language. Through EARLY Minds:

  • We give the school a shared language between pupils and staff to talk about mental health in everyday conversations to create culture change
  • We teach children how to link feelings they are experiencing with met or unmet emotional needs
  • We equip them with practical strategies to help themselves and others to return to wellbeing
  • We give them scientific understanding of how the brain works and why everyone copes with challenges in different ways

What will children learn?

EARLY Minds introduces skills and knowledge that lay the foundation for life-long mental wellbeing through whole class workshops.

In our core lessons children will learn how to:

  • Identify and speak about their feelings
  • Change unhelpful thoughts into helpful ones
  • Practise skills to calm strong emotions helping them to become free from worry so they can relax, engage and learn
  • Dragon breath (7/11 breathing)

Our core (age appropriate) lessons include:

  • ‘Understanding emotional needs’
  • ‘How to be free from worry’
  • ‘How to calm strong emotions such as anger or fear’

Our focused topics also include:

  • Flexible thinking
  • Increasing focus and motivation
  • Building relationships
  • Resisting peer pressure
  • Preventing bullying
  • Coping with new situations and challenges
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How is EARLY Minds delivered?

90 minute sessions are delivered by qualified trainers from Suffolk Mind. We creatively engage children using developmentally appropriate strategies, including stories, exploratory questions, activities, games and movements as well as hand illustrated cards to aid many different learning styles.

Each year group lesson plan works alongside the curriculum and is linked to the Emotional Needs & Resources approach.

This course also includes:

 

 

Resource boxes

Suffolk Mind will leave your school with a resource box for KS1 and KS2 so that your school community can continue their EARLY Minds journey. Each box contains activities specifically designed for either KS1 or KS2 children. Each activity is used in our EARLY Minds sessions, linking to each emotional need.

Extra boxes are available to purchase

How to book

If you’d like to enquire about a session, email schools@suffolkmind.org.uk. Alternatively you can give us a call on 0300 111 6000.

Length: Half Day

Attendees: 1 class, max attendees 30 children.

Length: Full Day

Attendees: 2 classes, max attendees 30 children per class.

Enquire

Register your interest, and we’ll be in touch for the next steps to support mental wellbeing in your school or activity group.

Don’t forget to check if you’re eligible for any of our funded training.

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Includes The Essentials training for staff (max 16 delegates for face-to-face training, 12 delegates for our interactive training) and a resource box for teachers to keep and use within classes following training.

Additional class support sessions

Following Early Minds, additional focused and intensive workshops can be added for specific classes as needed or if an issue arises. This approach is designed to support the development of specific classes who would benefit from emotional development.

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