Hear from our Head of Research and Subject Specialist team about Foundations for Wellbeing — our evidence-based mental health and wellbeing curriculum for primary schools.
Josh oversees the PSHE Association’s research activities, which aim to generate a clearer understanding of how PSHE education can support children and young people to navigate challenges and opportunities in a rapidly changing world, and lead happy, healthy and fulfilling lives. Previously, he worked as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership Associate at the PSHE Association and the University of York, facilitating the development of Foundations for Wellbeing, our evidence-based mental health and wellbeing curriculum for primary schools.
Lydia is one of the Subject Specialists at the PSHE Association. She has taught and led PSHE education across the primary phase, with direct experience of designing a bespoke curriculum. As an Assistant Headteacher in Personal Development, roles in leading safeguarding and pupil premium have contributed to her methodology of using PSHE education as part of a holistic approach to education.
Sam is one of the Subject Specialists at the PSHE Association. She has taught in a variety of schools including state schools, independent schools and an international school. Over 13 years, Sam gained experience as a Head of Year, PSHE Coordinator and Personal Development lead, where she worked closely with students, parents and teachers to help develop and deliver student-centred PSHE education.
Liz is one of the Senior Subject Specialists at the PSHE Association. She has a Masters in Education, focused on policy and the power of language, and has worked with schools in over 20 countries, sharing best practice and collaborating on international, cross-curricular projects.
Note: This interview transcript has been edited for readability with permission from all speakers.
Liz Laming (LL)
Hello, and welcome to PSHE Talks. I'm Liz Laming, one of the Senior Subject Specialists at the PSHE Association, and I'm really excited to be here today to discuss our new mental health and wellbeing curriculum, Foundations for Wellbeing, with Dr Joshua Stubbs, Lydia Stober and Sam Payne. Josh is our Head of Research at the PSHE Association and oversaw the Foundations for Wellbeing project in his role as an associate at the Association and University of York, and Sam and Lydia are Subject Specialists and developed many of the materials. We're going to be exploring what the curriculum is and does, how it was developed, and how teachers in schools can use it to support all the brilliant work they're doing to promote and support the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils. Josh, let's start with some basics. What exactly is this curriculum? What does it consist of? Can you tell us a little bit more?
Dr Joshua Stubbs (JS)
Foundations for Wellbeing is our new mental health and wellbeing curriculum for 4- to 11-year-olds. It's the outcome of a project which, as you mentioned, was a collaboration between the University of York and the PSHE Association. And it brings together both up-to-date evidence - evidence about mental health and how to teach children and young people about knowledge and skills that can support their mental health and wellbeing - and it combines that with PSHE pedagogy, which has been developed and refined over many years here at the PSHE Association, to develop a curriculum that consists of 35 lessons. That includes an activity pack for Reception, and then five lessons each year, from year 1 to year 6. And it takes a systematic approach to teaching children knowledge and skills that can support them to look after their mental health and wellbeing, to self-regulate - that is, to monitor and manage their emotions, attention, etc. We're very excited to launch it.
LL
You mentioned the fact that this is evidence-based. Could you just tell us a little bit more about what the evidence is and how we developed this curriculum off the back of that?
JS
Over the course of the first six months or so of this project we spent a lot of time becoming familiar with the evidence, about how to support children and young people in developmentally appropriate ways to learn knowledge and skills that can support their mental health and wellbeing, during childhood and right across their lifetime. And that evidence looks at how effective programmes are structured, so we can learn from that and use that to inform the curriculum that we've developed, making sure that learning is sequenced so it becomes more complex as the years go on and as lessons progress. It's active learning, so it's not just a case of talking to children and them sitting passively and so on. It's focused, so we have a really clear idea about what learning we're actually trying to facilitate in each lesson, and of course, that works really well with the PSHE Association's approach to developing clear learning objectives and learning outcomes. And the learning is explicit as well, so it's not a vague sense of, "oh, we think we're meant to be doing this or that" - there's a clear definition of what learning we're trying to get out. In terms of looking at strategies, all of the strategies in the programme are informed by evidence and have been shown to support mental health and wellbeing. As we explain, actually, in our lessons, none of the strategies will work for all pupils or all children all of the time. But they are all evidence-based and have been shown to work at least some of the time. So the idea is that as the lessons progress, as children grow older, they become more and more familiar with these strategies, and they can work out for themselves which ones they like, which ones they find helpful and in what situations.
We worked most closely with an academic called Dr. Dusana Dorjee, who is a senior lecturer at the University of York, and she mapped out how this knowledge and skills might develop over the course of childhood and into early adolescence - what we should expect the majority of children at certain ages to be able to do, or what it would be appropriate for them to be taught or to learn how to do to support their mental health and wellbeing. But this is mapped out quite broadly, so age groups of 2-3 years at a time. So one of the challenges was that we needed to work out as a team, how do we translate that? How do we take this evidence and use this to inform lessons that are divided up by year, not just by key stage? And then some of the evidence as well is based around things like how to manage distractions. We know that children, younger children in particular, are quite easily distractable. So how do we then teach them about distractions? That was one of the things that we needed to think carefully about, and we thought carefully about everything, really, over the course of the two years. I think no stone was left unturned. Lydia, I think, could tell us a bit more about how you adapted this with the younger children.
Lydia Stober (LS)
Thanks, Josh, for that overall picture. I was working on the key stage 1 lessons, and in terms of translating that for that age group, Josh has mentioned working with Dusana and then creating this very broad framework. The initial work really was to try to pinpoint some of the core concepts for that age group, and to break those down, to make it simple but also age-appropriate, and make sure it provides that good foundation for year 3, year 4 and beyond. It was about developing, essentially, their knowledge about feelings at first, in year 1 particularly. So understanding what feelings are, being able to name the feelings they have and notice them when they're happening, and then put that into a context. I think context is really, really important - those of you who are key stage 1 teachers or know younger children will know that things in context make a lot more sense to younger children. So the way that we use the characters, throughout the lesson plans, the PowerPoints and a lot of the visual resources that we have, will really support that learning. And practical activities and all that linking it to real life as well, will really help key stage 1 children to get a sense of it, I think.
JS
I suppose that's one of the key features, actually, of the curriculum that we haven't mentioned so far. You mentioned the characters - we follow the same characters from year 1 through to year 6, which I think is a really nice feature. So when children meet the characters in year 1, the characters themselves will be in year 1, and when they meet them again in year 2, those characters will be in year 2. And I think that builds that familiarity; you get to know them, I suppose. They have things that make them individual and so on. And then it's that context, exactly as you said, you need to understand things in context. In the case of learning about feelings and emotions, it's not just a case of learning the names of different feelings, but actually looking at different situations. And as you said, they get more complex as the years go on and the characters experience situations that children do as they get older. So all relatable, I think.
LL
Josh, just on that note, I think you've mentioned, and Lydia as well, a couple of the lessons that we go into, naming and noticing emotions and thinking about managing distractions. All of this falls under this bigger theme of self-regulation. I wonder if you can just speak to that a little bit, about what it is we're aiming to do with these lessons in terms of self-regulation in young people?
JS
So we have five lessons per year, as mentioned. Each of these lessons touch on the same topic, in the same order, each year. And they're organised around self-regulation, so each of the topics are exploring a different aspect of self-regulation. A really broad but useful simple definition for self-regulation would be to say that it's being able to monitor and manage our attention, behaviour and emotions - so that means being aware of what we're doing, what we're paying attention to, what feelings or emotions we're experiencing, and then doing something to manage them in some way.
The first of those lessons starts with looking at different feelings and emotions each year, trying to name them. Being able to name them can be really useful, because when we name unpleasant emotions it can make them a little bit less intense, which can make them easier to manage. And also, if we can be clear about precisely what it is that we're feeling, or what emotion we're experiencing, we're then in a better position to work out what exactly to do about that emotion.
Then in the second lesson we move on to managing distractions. The way we explain the importance of this to children is just explaining that distractions are normal - everybody gets distracted, and they can be difficult for all of us to manage sometimes. And distractions, we also acknowledge, can be useful, so it's actually introduced as a time-limited emotion regulation strategy. But we also explain that if you get distracted a lot, then that can actually make it more difficult for us to focus on things that we really care about, or need to do or enjoy doing, and therefore can reduce the level of enjoyment or success of doing those things. That's the way we explain it to children.
In the third lesson, we're looking at developing more positive thinking habits and managing negativity bias - so that's a natural tendency that we can have to look on the downside or not notice good things. It's not about being super, super positive all the time, instead it's just about looking for opportunities, when possible, to look on the bright side in perhaps challenging situations, and just to notice and pay attention to pleasant everyday things - a nice meal, or if you enjoy your walk to school.
The fourth lesson is about reappraising, really. So managing worries, trying to look at things from a different, more helpful perspective, where we shift the way in which we think about things. And then the fifth lesson, we're thinking about how to manage attention and reactivity.
So these are five different aspects of self-regulation, and we explore each of them each year. And I think this will be a really useful approach for teachers, because it means the teachers themselves will become very familiar with it - there'll be shared language across all of the years, and then children themselves also will be familiar with the topics they're covering each year. So they can revisit, pick up anything that they perhaps don't remember from the previous year, and then consolidate that and build on that, building progressively as the years go on.
And then finally - maybe I could have said this at the start - self-regulation is associated with a whole host of positive outcomes, really across most aspects of life. So during childhood, during adolescence, and in adult years as well. It's associated, at least, with better outcomes, a better mental health and wellbeing.
LL
Sam, as Josh has said, the lessons build year-on-year, but they're under these five key themes. I know you were writing the lessons and creating resources for year 5 and year 6, so this upper key stage 2 age range. How were you making sure they were progressing and kept building from what had come before, all the way from what Lydia was doing with year 1 up through to year 4 and beyond?
Sam Payne (SP)
So by the time the students are reaching years 5 and 6, we're changing the complexity of the scenarios that some of the characters are involved in, particularly with the year 6 lessons, looking at some of the challenges that might come with transition. They're starting to prepare for moving away from a primary setting into a secondary setting, and thinking about some of the worries that might come with that, maybe some of the additional tension that might come with those feelings as well and how to manage those. And by the time they come towards year 5 and 6, they've explored lots of the strategies in all the different lessons. So we start to really help the pupils think about which strategies might be most suitable depending on what the scenario is or where they are, for example. Would they maybe use certain strategies at home, and maybe use different ones if they had worries when they were at school? And thinking about the characters in these different scenarios and which strategies might work best for them.
We also - I know Josh and Lydia both mentioned distraction - when we move into year 5 and 6, we start to introduce this idea of thinking about 'goal-setting', and using goal-setting to help focus on achieving aims. And that can be a really useful tool when thinking about managing distraction as well. So really it's gradual, but increasing that complexity as they move through the key stages.
LL
Obviously, a lot of work has gone into these lessons, lots to consider as you went into that building year-on-year. Were there any particular challenges you faced, or anything you found quite difficult when creating these resources?
SP
Of course. I think our first starting point, and I'm sure Lydia would agree with me here, was us working alongside Josh and making sure that we had a really good understanding of the research before we started to even think about putting anything in lessons. And then really spending time working together as a team, and thinking about how we can make sure that this research and this understanding of things like the strategies and the neuroscience can be pupil-facing. Making sure that we're using appropriate language, and when we would introduce certain language, and what language we would introduce with key stage 1, and where we would start developing that and making it a little bit more complex as we move into key stage 2. But then on top of that, our next consideration was also thinking about how we can translate all of this information into teacher-facing information. We know that teachers don't have a lot of free time - we wanted to make sure that all of this research and the neuroscience that's used in the lessons could be digested really quickly and really easily, that teachers could pick up the information and be able to get an understanding nice and quickly and see how it relates to the lessons and for their pupils as well.
LL
Lydia, anything to add to that?
LS
I think, Sam, you've really covered it there. And what you're saying about making it digestible for teachers - it's a lot of information. I think this pack is super comprehensive, but it's done in such a way that those iterative building blocks are really concrete. It makes a lot of sense, I think, as you go through the year groups.
LL
Just to unpick one of the other things Sam talked about there, we do introduce some neuroscience into the lessons, too, which is something in particular I think all of us were less familiar with - what's going on in the brain and how that works. What are we talking about when we talk about the neuroscience here, what does that mean? How does it translate to pupil-facing materials or instructions for teachers?
JS
We started off by trying to decide amongst ourselves, really, is there any point in even teaching neuroscience to children? The programme that we're developing is informed by neuroscience, but that doesn't mean you necessarily have to teach it - so that was actually a decision that we needed to make ourselves. We do know from research that children often enjoy learning about the brain, so it makes it more fun and more engaging for them, which is good to know, but you still need to have maybe a better reason than that. So we began thinking about, well, what is it that's actually useful or could be useful for children to understand?
And one of the first things that we arrived at is the concept of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change following different experiences, repeated practice and so on. This is quite a positive message for children to receive, that actually, if they practise using the strategies that are being taught in the lessons, and they use these consistently over time to successfully manage, or to manage as well as possible, challenging situations, this will become easier to do in the future, and it will become more automatic as well. There are parts of the brain, like the hippocampus, which will help to remember the strategies and the situations in which they've proven useful. And so I think this is quite a promising message, because you understand then, there are strategies that you can use, and if you use them consistently, then actually over time, that will become easier to do, and so managing your worries will become easier. Again, with positive thinking habits, we explain that if you make a conscious effort, to begin with, to pay more attention to pleasant everyday experiences, over time that will begin to happen more automatically. So the brain will begin to change, and you won't have to exert as much effort to do those things, it will just happen in a more automatic way.
And then there are certain parts of the brain which I think it is useful for children to begin learning about. They begin learning from key stage 2 about specific brain regions, or what we call parts of the brain, and we explain what each of these do in quite simple terms. It's very easy, it's very self-explanatory in the lessons as well, so it's not like in terms of pre-reading or something to do before introducing them. For example, we explain that the amygdala detects threats, so it's a bit like a guard trying to keep us safe. And this can be really useful because it can keep us safe and prompts us to do things that will be good for us, but it can also be a bit overactive sometimes, ring alarm bells when it's not necessary or ring them too loudly, and that can make us feel on edge or angry or upset. But there are things that we can do to soothe or calm the amygdala. The part of the brain that regulates the amygdala is the prefrontal cortex, and by using some of the strategies to manage challenging situations, we can actually strengthen the prefrontal cortex and the connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. Which essentially just means that it becomes easier for the prefrontal cortex, which helps us to think rationally and regulates our emotions and so on, to send messages to the amygdala, to communicate with it and to help us to keep calm or to calm down when we're feeling frustrated or angry or anxious.
So we're thinking about neuroplasticity and a certain number of brain regions, and then only teaching about those when it's useful and relevant, and doing so in a way that is simple enough for children to understand. It's simple enough for a teacher picking up these lessons for the first time to be able to make sense of and convey and teach to pupils. And a real benefit here of working with the University of York was that all our explanations, obviously we're simplifying things so that children can understand them, but we were able to go back to the neuroscientists that we were working with and just check, are these explanations okay? Are we oversimplifying in any places? Are there any caveats we need to include or not? But we've done a good job as a team of conveying these things in a way that is useful, accurate, but also simple enough for children and teachers to make sense of.
LL
Sam, I don't know if you want to talk at all about how you found the process of doing that, because I think a lot of this information, as I said, was fairly new to all of us. In terms of what Josh has just been talking about, how that translates across, say, your five lessons for year 6, for example, what does that look like? Is it all just in one place in one lesson? Have we spread it out? What's the approach we've taken?
SP
It's very much spread out. The idea, as Josh said, of neuroplasticity is woven throughout the lessons, and we're always reintroducing that idea because like Josh said, it's very fundamental. I think that, from the children's and the pupils' perspective, is really important, in that it helps them feel that they've got some control and that by using these strategies they can make changes, and that can be really helpful in them understanding. But in terms of the regions of the brain, there'll be one or two specific regions of the brain discussed or introduced in each of the lessons, depending on what strategies we're looking at, or for example if we're looking at distraction. So it's not all in one go and potentially feeling very daunting, but little bits here and there.
LL
In all our lessons we usually have these extension activities or activities to develop learning further. I think that was very much a focus for these as well, because we don't want PSHE teachers or class teachers to deliver a lesson or deliver five lessons, and that's it, they're done, they don't think about it again, because we know for pupils to really get the most out of it, these strategies and things should be practised. So, Lydia, I don't know if you can speak a little bit about what we've tried to do with that embedding of learning.
LS
I think it's really interesting, actually, our whole approach with this. In terms of mental health education, we're bringing together neuroscience, emotional literacy, things like noticing and naming feelings, and the skills together at the same time - it's a big job. What that means is that obviously we're delivering the classroom lessons, the children are accessing the resources and the PowerPoints - but also, as you mentioned, we have these extension activities, and these are designed to carry through into their everyday school life. I'm thinking of one of the year 1 lessons, where they are naming feelings and they're talking about how strong the feelings are. And one of the extension activities is to create a lolly stick where they can track how they're feeling - so lower down the lolly stick it's green, they're feeling calm, up to red, they're feeling angry. And in the extension activity, they can use those for their daily life, for daily check-ins; the teacher can get them to create their own lolly sticks outside the lesson. It's designed for application and for everyday context. That's, I think, the unique part of what we're doing with this curriculum, bringing it into life outside the PSHE classroom. At the moment there are mental health resources out there, and in the past, we've produced our own - but this pack really brings something new, I think, in that we don't need any other resources. You don't need a mindfulness programme to go along with this. The activities catch a lot of different areas, basically.
LL
The other thing that springs to mind for those younger pupils as well, if you're reading a story in English or literacy, essentially applying what they've done in PSHE to the characters - how's the character feeling? How might they notice and name emotions? It's finding ways to weave it into your wider curriculum because I think that's a really important point, too. With all of this, it's a huge piece of work, and obviously, it's something that teachers are really keen to make sure they are supporting. Everyone wants to support the wellbeing of their pupils, but sometimes it can feel like it all falls to the PSHE lead or the PSHE teacher, or even the class teacher. And we don't want that to be the case. I think it's a really key point that actually this is part of a whole-school approach to supporting mental health and wellbeing.
LL
I know, Lydia, you've been working on a course that will go alongside the lessons as well, a self-guided online course, looking at that exact thing. I don't know if you can just talk briefly about that as well.
LS
The Foundations for Wellbeing curriculum offers a really strong core, a really strong starting point for a school's whole-school approach. Firstly, obviously, it's rooted in evidence, as Josh has explained. We've just talked about those extension activities and how it builds into school life, and that can help to support the wider school aims, and also contribute to the school culture. I'm just seeing the image of the lesson plans being taught in the classroom, and then it permeating through the school itself. Lots of schools obviously have an approach to mental health already, or they might be revising it as they're going along. But because these lessons also gives children those self-regulation skills, they're using those throughout the school day, so it is actively contributing to that culture as they're in and around the school all the time. I think the other thing is, hopefully, it opens up those conversations across the whole-school community. For example, pastoral staff can use the same strategies or they can support pupils to use the strategies that are introduced in class, in the lessons, and perhaps in other contexts, just like in the lessons themselves. So perhaps out in the playground or a school trip, or if they're facing something new or they're about to take part in a school play, a lot of what the lessons cover will help with those crunch moments as well. Then from there, schools can build their CPD around it, making sure that staff are confident in supporting pupils' mental health using some of the self-regulation strategies as well. And also looking at the wider picture of the school community, it supports this idea that staff wellbeing is important, too. You're creating something quite holistic, really, with this.
LL
Josh, we keep talking about this 35-lesson curriculum, so that's five lessons for Early Years and then five per year group, years 1 to 6. But if teachers go and download the pack, what else are they going to get to support them to deliver these materials and to contribute to the whole-school approach that Lydia has just been talking about?
JS
So alongside the lessons, we've developed a whole host of other resources which will accompany and complement the lessons. We've produced posters which describe some of the self-regulation strategies that are introduced, and these are organised according to managing different situations. For example, what strategies can you use if you're managing worries, or what about if you're trying to manage distractions or strong emotions? These can be displayed around the school, and will support that development of a shared language and a shared understanding of strategies that children can draw on. And they're also a nice reminder, of course, for children as well. So they've been introduced to these strategies in the lessons, and then it could be several weeks or several months down the line, and they're still being displayed on the walls - it's a nice visual reminder.
We've also developed some animations - these are animated guides to relaxation techniques, so slow breathing and progressive muscle relaxation. The slow breathing animation has a character who breathes in as though smelling flowers and then blows out as though gently blowing bubbles. And we developed this particular animation because we've seen in research that often when children are asked to take a few slow breaths, they actually don't understand how to do this particularly well intuitively - often, they don't breathe slowly enough or they do it for too long, or just not long enough to make a difference. But by having an animation that is quite short, a minute, 90 seconds, that the pupils can follow, this can help them to really understand how to use slow breathing in such a way that will actually lead to physiological changes and allow them to feel calmer. And we have a progressive muscle relaxation video, which builds on the slow breathing video. Both of those are accompanied by British Sign Language as well.
We've developed some self-guided online courses, which will be available to School Plus members. Then we also have a teacher handbook, which covers a lot of the content that you would ordinarily cover in teacher guidance - so subject knowledge, how to teach safely and effectively, how to adapt your lessons - and then it also includes some detailed descriptions of the self-regulation strategies. In particular, emotion regulation strategies - strategies that children can use to exert some control over their emotions. There are emotion down-regulation strategies, which are for trying to reduce the intensity of emotions, emotions that are really strong or quite uncomfortable, as well as emotion up-regulation strategies, which can be used to initiate or sustain pleasant emotions, and then a set of strategies that can be used for managing distraction as well. So if teachers want to look over those and familiarise themselves with those, and to understand the evidence base better, that's all in there. And there's also lots of references in the teacher handbook, so if teachers want to follow up and do some reading of their own, then they can do that as well.
LL
I think that's something that's really helpful with the curriculum - having not only the online training courses, but as you say, the teacher handbook that really does break this down. For a lot of teachers, there's a lot that we'll be talking about that teachers are really familiar with and are doing really, really well already - this isn't all going to be brand new information for them. But there are some teachers for whom it will be quite new, and we're taking a slightly different approach to maybe what they've taken before. And so it really is there to support teachers as much as possible. You don't need any background information here - we're giving it all, as much advice as you need, it is there for you and it's available for you, to support you as you deliver these lessons and embed them as part of your whole-school approach. So lots of exciting stuff to look forward to.
LL
If I could just put everyone on the spot, really, as we do launch the lessons, could you give me one thing you're most excited about?
SP
We've worked on this project for a really long time, so I'm really excited for it to be in the classroom - to hear teachers' feedback on how it's worked in the classroom, how the pupils have taken on board the learning, and to hear about how it's worked with them using the strategies. To see it come to life, basically, and all that work come out and be with the young people.
LS
Yeah, Sam's really covered my feelings as well. Because of how unique this package is, how we've melded together the self-regulation strategies and the knowledge about things like the neuroscience and the self-concept aspects, I look forward to seeing how that's received and the impact of that, now and in the future. From a whole-school approach, you're starting it, say this year, you're starting with your year 1s. By the time they get to year 6, we'll be able to see that longer-term investment of the teaching and learning with this.
JS
Building on what Lydia said, one of the things I'm most excited for is actually to see what effect it's had after several years. So once it's been used across several year groups and teachers are increasingly familiar with it, and using it to inform everyday practices and the language that they use. I'm also just looking forward to finding out what children themselves make of it. So of course, some of the lessons cover sensitive topics, but I think a lot of them are done in a way that is relatable, exploring situations that are relatable and interesting and engaging. So hopefully they'll actually enjoy the lessons themselves - I'm looking forward to finding out what children make of it.
LL
Thank you very much for your time, everyone, today. Just as a reminder for everyone listening, the lessons are now available to download from the website. So all 35 lessons, posters, teacher handbook, animated guides, everything is there for you. And as Josh mentioned earlier, School Plus members can also access the three self-led online courses that you and all your staff can use as well. We really hope you enjoy using the materials. As everyone said, we're really keen to hear your feedback, so do get in touch - let us know how it's going, and let us know what your pupils think. We look forward to hearing from you.