Coping with Change

This 5-lesson PSHE scheme of work is perfect to end your year with a Year 6 class as they negotiate the big changes that will be happening to them as they transition to a new school. The scheme helps guide them through some different coping strategies for expected and unexpected changes, touching on smaller friendship changes and online relationships as well as the big Year 6 transition into secondary school.

A Knowledge Organiser is available to support the learning in this scheme. It is included in the Complete Series download or can be purchased individually.

You might also like our Health Topic Bundle – perfect if you're looking for a cross-curricular approach to your planning. 

 

Reacting to Change

In this first lesson, the children will explore how different people react to changes in different ways and why this might be. They are given the opportunity to reflect on how a person's past experiences, values, strengths and weaknesses might affect their reaction to different kinds of change.

This lesson focuses on a person's unique reactions to change and how a change may feel small to one person, but invoke a bigger reaction in others. The children are encouraged to reflect on their own values, strengths and weaknesses and how this contributes to their reactions to different changes.

This initial lesson comes with a detailed lesson plan and activity ideas, PDF lesson slides and printable resources to support independent reflections.

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Conflicting Emotions

This lesson offers your class the opportunity to reflect on how complex scenarios can result in conflicting emotions. They will discuss some different strategies on how to manage conflicting emotions before taking part in some independent reflection during their learning activity.

The lesson also discusses how reactions can be disproportionate to our 'normal' reactions as a result of low mental health or lack of self-care. They then explore the idiom 'The straw that broke the camel's back' and how this might relate to our emotions and disproportionate reactions to them.

With printable resources to support your class as they reflect on these tricky scenarios, this lesson comes with all you need to help your class identify and manage conflicting emotions.

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Expected Changes

This lesson aims to equip the children with a strategy to help them manage a change that they are expecting and have an idea of when it's going to happen.

The focus is on the acronym PLAN, which aims to help children identify steps they can take to make the change more manageable and understandable, including asking questions and making lists of aspects of what they like before and after the change. They will also identify small ways they can retain control of their lives during a big transition before applying this learning to some hypothetical scenarios.

This lesson comes with a detailed lesson plan, differentiated activity ideas, PDF lesson slides and accompanying printable resources.

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Unexpected Changes

Changes don't always give us time to prepare mentally and physically. Unexpected changes can be some of the hardest to cope with as the sudden disruption to our expectations can trigger our fight, flight, freeze, fawn or flop responses. It's important to know of and practise some strategies that help us feel in control of ourselves and our reactions.

This lesson aims to identify some sudden changes that could happen to us and practise applying some of the coping strategies that we know of already. During a time where we can feel powerless and out of control, the children can identify some ways they can regain or maintain control. This might include mindful body scans and breathing, grounding techniques and identifying our responses.

This lesson comes with a detailed lesson plan, differentiated activity ideas, PDF lesson slides and accompanying printable resources.

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Changing Schools

An inevitable change that all the children will experience: moving schools. This lesson aims to challenge the children to apply what they have learnt to a real-life expected change that they will be experiencing soon. The children will reflect on and discuss the different ways that they can cope with the transition to a new school.

The children will discuss small ways that they can feel in control during the change to make it more manageable. They will also reflect on the opportunities for increased independence, responsibilities and learning that this change will bring for them.

This lesson comes with a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson input slides and differentiated resources to support the children during their independent work.

View Lesson 5

This Year 6 PSHE Knowledge Organiser has been created to complement our PSHE Self and Emotional Wellbeing strand. It is designed to support your children’s understanding of key vocabulary linked to this scheme of work. A thinking question and a big idea have been included to encourage your children to think deeply about this topic.

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