Resilient Transitions: Thoughts and Feelings
It's not what happens to us that shapes how we feel. It's what we tell ourselves about it. Through the stories of Tia and Tomas, pupils are introduced to one of the most powerful ideas in the whole series — that our Beliefs about events, not the events themselves, drive how we feel and behave. This single insight can change everything. Using the ABC model, pupils begin to see the gap between what happens and how they respond — and realise that gap is where their power lies. They meet the Gremlins for the first time: the Me voice that says it's all your fault, the Them voice that says it's nothing to do with you, and the Always voice that says it will never get better. Recognising these patterns is the first step to not being controlled by them. A focused maze activity closes the lesson with a practical experience of deliberately directing attention — a skill that underpins everything that follows.
Learning Outcomes
Outcome 1:
Understand the link between thoughts and feelings
Outcome 2:
Explore negative thoughts about moving to secondary school
Outcome 3:
Identify gremlin beliefs
Outcome 4:
Practise being focused
What's included
A quick look at the classroom-ready resources that come with this lesson.
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Contributing Experts
People who helped produce this lesson.
Lucy Bailey
Lucy Bailey is Founder of Bounce Forward and Healthy Minds for Parents. With two decades of experience in mental resilience and emotional wellbeing, and training 1000s of teachers, parents and other adults around children and young people. Lucy is proud of her early career in youth work and children services. Lucy had a poor experience of school and that has driven her passion to influence UK policy to form a positive system of change with psychological fitness at the core. Lucy has directed national research projects (including the Healthy Minds five year study), is certified by University of Pennsylvania, has an MSc in Practice Based Research, a BSc in Social Policy and Criminology, and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. Her published book Raise Resilience: Teach your teenager well has led to the creation of the Psychological Fitness Nana bridging old school wisdom with modern psychology for parents of the 21st century.
About the Organisation
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.