PSHE lead - Lyz Collins

Personal, Social and Health Education is a school subject through which pupils develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage their lives, now and in the future. It helps young people stay healthy and safe, while preparing them to make the most of life and work. PSHE education also helps pupils achieve their academic potential.

Farnborough Road Junior School follows the My Happy Mind curriculum. This programme is based around helping children to understand how their brain works and to support them in developing positive skills and habits to be their very best selves! It helps to prepare today’s children for tomorrow’s world by building resilient, balanced and happy minds at home and school.

We are proud to announce that we are a myHappymind Bronze Accredited school!

This means that as a school we consider the mental health and wellbeing of our children as one of our top priorities. We have created a whole school culture that helps build our children's resilience, confidence and self esteem as well as teaching them how to self regulate in those stressful times. 

This Accreditation badge has been awarded thanks to all the effort our staff, children, governors and parents have put in to bring the lessons of myHappymind to life all around our school!

Curriculum Intent

We aim to be an outstanding school at the heart of our local community. We want to create a happy, safe, caring and inclusive learning environment where every child will become an independent learner who achieves their full potential. In partnership with families, we will help pupils to become responsible young people who are on a pathway to success.

Curriculum Implementation

My Happy Mind is a wellbeing programme that helps to prepare today’s children for tomorrow’s world by building resilient, balanced and happy minds at home and school. Below are the modules that are taught across the school.

Meet Your Brain: Understanding how your brain works and how to ensure we look after it so that we can manage our emotions and be at our best. Growth mindset is a key part of this too.

Celebrate: Understanding your unique Character Strengths and learning to celebrate them. This is a fantastic module for building self-esteem.

Appreciate: Understanding why gratitude matters and how you can develop gratitude as a habit. Gratitude is key to wellbeing and resilience and we're all about making it a lifelong strategy!

Relate: Understanding why positive relationships matter and how to build them. We're focused on the building blocks of good relationships and friendships.

Engage: Understanding how to set meaningful goals that matter and how to stay resilient in times of challenge. This module is all about building self-esteem and resilience too.

My Happy Mind Plus is the latest update to the programme which covers the entire PSHE curriculum. It fully meets UK statutory guidance for relationships and health education while also covering many non-statutory PSHE objectives. 

My Happy Relationships - includes friendships, bullying, respect and safety 

My Happy World - includes citizenship, media literacy, financial literacy and careers

My Happy Body - includes physical wellbeing, safety and drugs/alcohol education 

Curriculum Impact

We strive for every child to achieve their full potential in PSHE by addressing current experiences and preparing for their future by teaching essential life skills. Our aim is to enable all of our pupils to acquire the qualities and attributes they need to thrive as individuals, family members and members of society.

Quotes from children about My Happy Mind

We learn about My Happy Mind on a Friday and it feels like a Friday lesson. It gives me the Friday feeling!

My Happy Mind is one of my favourite subjects now. I love the characters and the different activities.

Journaling is so much fun – you can draw and colour while thinking about how your brain works. I definitely know my brain better now!

My Happy Mind teaches you about emotions and how the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex go to sleep when the amygdala takes over.

A neuroplasticity moment is when your brain grows over time. The neural pathways get stronger the more you learn. I had a neuroplasticity moment when I kept practising my 5 times tables.

I love Happy Breathing. It helps you use your imagination to calm down when you’re angry.

I know what’s healthy and unhealthy for my mind which is really useful information.