This is a ‘Ready, Set, Secondary’ Transition Workbook. Moving from primary to secondary school is a significant milestone in a pupil’s educational journey, bringing new adventures, opportunities, and challenges. Being prepared for this transition is crucial to ensure pupils approach it with confidence and enthusiasm.
** update we have added a ‘High School’ version
Secondary school introduces new subjects, teachers, and a larger environment. Embracing this change with a positive mindset is key. Encouraging pupils to recognise their strengths and achievements builds the confidence needed to face new challenges.
Setting realistic goals provides students with direction and purpose. Identifying their unique strengths helps them focus on areas where they can excel and positively contribute to their new school environment. Goal-setting fosters a sense of accomplishment and motivation.
Emotional preparation is just as important as academic readiness. Teaching pupils about self-care, self-awareness of feelings, breathing exercises, and visualising that success.
When students feel supported and understood, they thrive. With the right support and mindset, the transition to secondary school can be a rewarding and enriching experience.
This ‘Ready, set secondary’ transition workbook will help pupils to understand their readiness for Secondary school. Lots of transition resources can be based on anxiety and worries whereas this is about empowering the young person. They are awesome, and ready for their next chapter.
It is split into sections
Amazing me!
Discovering my strengths
Goals
Moving forward
Being prepared emotionally
There are 31 pages in the workbook.
This workbook is great for working one to one with pupils who need a bit of a confidence boost to help them realise how ready they are for moving onto Secondary School. Just print one out for each pupil you work with.
Teach children about the six basic emotions with these booklets and games. Angry, sad, happy, scared, disgust and surprise.
Can be used on a one to one basis, with a group or even a whole class. Use the sheets as worksheets or lessons for every child.
Great for ELSA intervention or for Learning mentors or Teaching assistants.
Also a set of superhero fans thrown in to help with emotional regulation.
Bee Here Now! is a therapeutic story to help a child suffering from worries or anxieties. It also addresses bullying.
There is an accompanying workbook which will teach children some mindfulness techniques.
Also included is a set of ‘cloud’ feeling fans.
For more resources on anxiety check out Master Your Monsters
Anxiety and Worries group intervention
This is a huge pack of resources for children to learn how to rid themselves of negative thoughts through mindfulness type exercises. There are 3 zipped files included in the download due to the size of the resource.
The children are asked to think about an animal, then to stop thinking about the animal. This will demonstrate how it is difficult to stop thinking about something just by telling yourself not to think about it. They are then asked to do an exercise to demonstrate how that will rid them of the animal. If the animal comes back they do the exercise again.
There are:
24 A5 cards to print
24 Powerpoint shows for each exercise
24 PDFs of the Powerpoint shows
Supporting worksheets – 3 main sheets but offered with colour, black and white, with and without lines.
This wellbeing craft group can be used as a whole intervention at lunchtime clubs, after school clubs or as part of your ELSA work.
The sessions are all stand alone so could be dipped into as part of your sessions. You could use them for the first session with a child to help them feel calm and relaxed with you.
Making crafts is very satisfying and can help with mindfulness, low mood and self esteem.
There are lots of opportunities for discussion and children will often open up when crafting.
There are 6 sessions in the pack with planning, templates, emotion wheel and mindful colouring for early finishers. 67 Sheets in total.
Sessions are for approximately 30 minutes and include an emotion check in, planning for six sessions which includes a mindfulness/calming activity, mandalas for mindful colouring – useful for early finishers and a huge template pack which includes several variations of each craft, black and white versions, information, and instructions.
Wellbeing craft group activities:
Sleepy stars which is about getting a good night’s sleep
Kandinsky tree which is about colour and emotions
Relaxing jellyfish which addresses relaxation and contains affirmations for the word relax.
Worry Monsters which looks at worries
Friendship wreath which looks at qualities of friendship
Happy sunshine which is all about things that make them feel happy
This is a HUGE ‘Feelings Diary or journal’ pack so you can put together the PERFECT diary or journal for each pupil you work with.
There are over 65 different templates to use. Pupils can write or draw or do a bit of both. This resource is suitable for children as young as 5 or 6 to teens.
Pupils can track their feelings, talk about their feelings, explore thoughts, look at body sensations, be mindful of the 5 a day for wellbeing, use brain dumping and scale emotions along with many other things like mindful colouring.
This FRIENDSHIP intervention planning resource pack is ready to go. Just print and deliver!
This pack is suitable for WHOLE CLASS as well as group work. If there are teachers out there who have children who just don’t get along then try running this as an intervention during PSHE time. Each lesson will take approximately 40 minutes to an hour.
It is perfect for an ELSA or teaching assistant who has to work with a group of children with friendship issues.
Included in this pack:
FRIENDS certificates (children colour in a letter after each lesson and take them away at the end of the intervention).
7 planning sessions which could be done over several weeks.
40 positive friendship cards
The Key to deserving good friends worksheet
Five posters looking at skills for empathy.
Skills for empathy bookmarks for the children to take away
A ‘Friend’ venn worksheet.
Heart friends template
How to apologise bookmark for the children to take away after the lesson.
The wonderful benefit of having a printable downloadable planner is that you can choose how to set it up yourself. I would really recommend a ring binder or binding machine so you can slot in those extra sheets when needed. You can choose how you want your planner to look.
The planner runs from September 2024 to August 2025 and covers the academic year for UK schools. It is suitable for ELSAs, Learning mentors, Teaching Assistants, HLTAs and so on. There are so many job titles out there that come under Support staff. Our planner is in PDF format.
What’s included?
Basic Planner
25 different covers which are editable so you can input your Job title, school and date. You need to download this to a laptop and open with Adobe reader to enable you to edit the Job title, date and your name.
Planner with one sheet for each month, with quotes.
Communication
Catch up
Communication with parents
Communication with staff
Contacts list
Look after you
5 a day for wellbeing
30 day positivity challenge
Doodle page
Funny things they say
Inspirational quotes (for logging your own)
Just Breathe – breathing exercises
Mandala colouring
Mindfulness colouring
Monitor your mood for the full year
My new skills
Positive thoughts
Proud moments
Reading happiness
Self care
Wake up
Personal and Records
Child profile
Class list
CPD record
Expenses mileage
Meeting notes
Notes
Overtime
Performance Management
Personal information
Referred children list
Resource list
Plan your time
Daily plan
Display planning
To do today
To do this week
Topic mind map
Useful websites
Weekly plan
Year at a glance
Planning and Assessment
Anger de-escalation
Filling in games
Group assessment sheet
Group attendance record
Group planning
Individual assessment record
Individual attendance record
Individual planning
Intervention groups
List of common emotions
Lesson reflection
Smart planning
Social skills
Social story planning
Note paper
This Rise and Thrive Teen self-esteem intervention is suitable for pupils in secondary. It may also be useful for mature year 6 pupils. It is a group intervention for approximately 6 pupils. It could be run whole class too.
Self-esteem refers to how a person views and values themselves. It involves having a positive opinion about your own worth, abilities, and qualities. When someone has healthy self-esteem, they feel confident, capable, and deserving of love and respect. Self-esteem is important because it influences how you perceive yourself, how you interact with others, how you handle challenges in life and your mental wellbeing.
An estimate of timings would be:
Review last time and check in 10 minutes
Activity 30 minutes
Review 5 minutes
Next time 5 minutes
Make sure you have 50 minutes to an hour to run the intervention.
There are six sessions to this intervention which will all help to raise self-esteem.
Boosters and drainers – pupils will explore what boosts self-esteem and what drains self-esteem
Strengths and talents -pupils will explore their strengths and talents
Challenging negative self-talk – pupils will learn how to reframe their negative dialogue
Building resilience – pupils will explore how to build their resilience by facing challenges and setbacks
Healthy and unhealthy relationships – pupils will explore relationships
Impact of self-care – pupils will learn the importance of self-care and the impact that has on self-esteem
Included in the Rise and Thrive teen self-esteem intervention:
Planning booklet with 6 fully planned sessions
Self-esteem scale for scaling at the beginning and end of the intervention
Lesson 1 – 36 Booster and drainer cards, Booster and drainer worksheet, emotions and self esteem visual
Lesson 2 – 40 strength cards, Building my strengths worksheet
Lesson 3 – Inner dialogue list for prompting, Challenging my inner dialogue worksheet
Lesson 4 – Resilience diary – front cover and one sheet to be copied multiple times
Lesson 5 – 8 prompts cards for relationships, Profile of a healthy relationship worksheet
Lesson 6 – Self care plan worksheet
This is a HUGE ELSA Secondary worksheet bundle with 68 worksheets that will be helpful for secondary pupils. It will also be good for upper KS2 or for those more mature pupils. It will also be helpful for adults too.
All the worksheets are black and white for easy and cost effective printing. There is minimal clipart.
Areas covered are:
Self-esteem
Emotions
Wellbeing
Anxiety
They can be used individually with pupils, with groups of pupils and whole classes of pupils. Build your lesson around a worksheet.
You could make up a workbook for each child you are working with to help with their specific problems by carefully choosing worksheets that would help them.
This is a six session fully planned EBSA intervention. EBSA is emotionally based school avoidance. This intervention is for working one to one with a pupil that has difficulties in coming to school or staying in school. It is aimed at KS2 and could also be used with Year 2 pupils.
It covers areas such as anxiety, the CBT cycle, exploring the perfect day at school, what pushes them into school and what pulls them away from school, what is safety and feeling safe? Pupil led plan on returning or staying in school. Emotions and relaxation are included along with work on strengths to help raise confidence and self-esteem.
Included in the EBSA intervention:
Planning booklet with 6 fully planned sessions
6 warmup activities based on strengths
6 relaxation exercises using visualisations
Emotions check in with resources to cover aspects of emotional literacy
Comic strip and callouts for spotting anxiety
Comic strip and callouts for the perfect day at school
CBT cycle pack
Safety shield resource
Anxiety thermometer
Safety scale
Pushing and pulling resource pack with visual, worksheets and scenario cards
Attending school questions and a pupil led plan
The word affirm means to ‘state something that is true’. Affirmation cards have simple but positive messages that help to develop a child’s sense of self. When used regularly it is hoped that the children will absorb the positive message and become more positive in their outlook in life. They will really begin to believe the statement that they are working on. The message needs to be realistic and very simple. Having unrealistic affirmations may make a child feel worse about themselves and your aim with these is to increase their self-esteem. All these cards begin with the words ‘I am’ and are very simple but achievable statements for all children.
This bundle contains all 4 different Affirmation cards which have been created by ELSA Support
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These Social and Emotional Support EXCEL assessments are perfect for an ELSA or anyone else who needs to track progress and impact of intervention.
It includes an excel file for tracking emotional skills, anxiety, social skills, growth mindset, independence, friendships and relationships, and self esteem.
There is also a pupil questionnaire.
These are so quick and easy to fill in. No calculating to do as it is all done for you. It is a matter of clicking a number for each statement.
They will work on a computer or laptop but NOT on an IPAD or phone and you must have EXCEL installed on your computer.
This download gives your school a licence to use these assessments. This means you only need to buy one for your school and everyone in your school can use it. The price listed is the price that needs to be paid for the school licence. Please do not add the TES school licence.