Healthy Mind Champions

At Brightside Nursery Infant School, we have been engaging with the Healthy Minds Project in Sheffield. Healthy Minds puts emotional resilience at the heart of children’s health and wellbeing and recognises its impact on learning, behaviour and attainment. By providing a stable, nurturing and protective environment, we can help children learn how to regulate their emotions and develop healthy relationships with peers and school staff. These abilities will have a huge impact on their emotional resilience and satisfaction with their lives.

Sally Harksby is our Education Mental Health Practitioner and is in school on Thursdays between 12:30pm - 3:30pm. She will be supporting the children in emotions groups as well as supporting the school with Healthy Minds.

Mrs Danielle Jenkins-Omar is our Designated Safeguarding Lead who supports the school's Healthy Minds Champions and meets with them regularly.

For more information about the Healthy Minds Project please click here.

We will be recruiting some more Healthy Minds Champions for the 2025/26 academic year. 

Here's what we achieved last academic year..... 

2024-2025

Autumn term

This term pupils put their names forward to be Healthy Minds Champions and were nominated by the class.

We have met twice during October to discuss what a Healthy Minds Champion is. The children gave some great ideas on how we can help our friends in school and they have been lunchtime monitors this half term supporting the use of our newly painted friendship bench.

During autumn 2 half term our Healthy Minds Champions are going to be designing kindness posters for antibullying week and looking at friendships, what makes a good friend and how can we support each other in school. We are linking this to the zones of regulation and strategies we can use.

Spring term

During the first half of this term our Healthy Minds Champions will be focusing on strategies we can use for different emotions. We will be learning different breathing techniques and sharing these with our friends.

Up until Easter we are going to be focusing on friendships and what makes a good friend, how we can help each other and being good role models at play and lunch times.

Summer term

During the summer term our Healthy Minds Champions are going to be focussing on supporting our calm club which opens every lunchtime and transition. We will be looking at our feelings around the next move, whether this be to a different year group or a different school, and how we can be good friends and support each other.

We will also be talking about worry boxes, what they are and what we can put in them to help us with our emotions.

Our Education Mental Health Practitioner, Sally, will also be working with our year 2's on transition to junior school.

Well done to all the Healthy Minds Champions for their amazing work and contribution this year!

We continue to use 'the Zones of Regulation' in school.  It's working really well and helping children realise when they are ready to learn or need help to get them in their learning zone.  

Children use colours to let us know how their feeling: 

Red - feeling really big emotions - angry, really upset or really scared.

Yellow - feeling excited, wriggly or worried.

Green - just right - where we want children to be - feeling calm, ready to learn, ok, content, in their thinking brain.

Blue - feeling slow, bored, poorly, sad, tired, switched off or in their own little world.

We've also been using some mindfulness techniques to help children calm down and return to GREEN and be ready to learn.  Please see pictures below for more information.