Intentional Stillness for Primary
Find calm in the everyday
Intentional Stillness — Curated with Kate Kane Helping Children Find Calm in a World Competing for Their Attention
In a world designed to grab children’s attention, teaching them how to find stillness is one of the most powerful things a school can do.
Developed with Kate Kane and field experts, Intentional Stillness is a nine-lesson KS2 curriculum that helps children discover practical ways to become calmer, more focused and more present. At a time when screens and constant stimulation compete for young minds, these skills are not a luxury. They are essential.
Lessons
Explore the curriculum
Browse lessons in order, then open any lesson for its summary, learning outcomes, and supporting resources.
Intentional Stillness: What is Intentional Stillness Primary
The introductory lesson for the Intentional Stillness curriculum explores the concept of stillness as a deliberate, purposeful practice rather than simply the absence of activity. Students discover why intentional stillness matters in today's fast-paced, always-on world and are introduced to foundational stillnessconcepts.
Intentional Stillness: The Brain and Intentional Stillness Primary
Students explore the neuroscience behind the actions for stillness. This lesson explains how intentional stillness affects the brain — from reducing stress hormone levels to strengthening neural pathways associated with focus, emotional regulation, and wellbeing — giving students a scientific foundation for the practice.
Intentional Stillness: Extending Intentional Stillness Primary
Building on the foundational practices, this lesson helps students develop and deepen their stillness practice. Students explore a range of techniques and learn how to extend moments of stillness throughout their day, making it a sustainable and integrated part of their routine.
Intentional Stillness: Using Intentional Stillness to Deal with Anxiety Primary
This lesson applies intentional stillness specifically to anxiety management. Students learn how anxiety manifests in the body and mind, and how stillness practices can be used as an immediate and longer-term tool for reducing anxiety and building emotional resilience.
Intentional Stillness: Understanding My Stress Bucket Primary
Using the 'stress bucket' metaphor, students visualise how stress accumulates and how different coping strategies — including intentional stillness — can help to manage and drain their bucket before it overflows. This lesson makes abstract stress concepts concrete and actionable.
Intentional Stillness: Using Intentional Stillness to Aid Sleep Primary
Students explore the connection between stillness, relaxation, and sleep quality. This lesson provides evidence-based strategies for using intentional stillness to improve sleep hygiene, helping students understand why good sleep is fundamental to mental health and how to create better pre-sleep routines.
Intentional Stillness: Exploring Sleep Routines Primary
Extending the sleep theme, this lesson dives deeper into the science and practice of healthy sleep routines. Students audit their current sleep habits, learn about circadian rhythms, and develop concrete plans for improving their sleep through intentional stillness and better sleep hygiene.
Intentional Stillness: Connecting to Others Primary
This lesson explores the social dimension of wellbeing, examining how our connections with others affect our mental health and how intentional stillness can improve the quality of our relationships. Students discover how being truly present transforms interactions and deepens connection.
Intentional Stillness: The Social Brain & Gratitude Primary
The final lesson of the Intentional Stillness series brings together the social and neurological themes of the programme. Students explore the neuroscience of gratitude, learning how practising gratitude activates positive brain circuits and enhances social bonds — leaving them with a powerful, evidence-based tool for lasting wellbeing.
About the organisation
Bounce Forward
Bounce Forward is the UK’s psychological-fitness charity.
We help children and young people — and the adults and environments around them — develop the understanding, skills and shared language to regulate, recover and adapt through challenge, change and everyday life.
Our work brings together mental resilience and emotional wellbeing, shifting the focus upstream: building capability before crisis, rather than waiting for something to go wrong. We translate evidence from psychology, resilience research, cognitive behavioural approaches and positive psychology into practical learning that can be taught, modelled and used in real life.
From evidence-informed curricula and staff development to family support and whole-community approaches, our work recognises that young people do not develop in isolation. What happens around a young person shapes what becomes possible within them.
Everything we create is practical, grounded in evidence and designed to build something that lasts — psychologically fit people and communities, better prepared to meet life.