Key Stage 3 & 4

Resources for children aged 11+

Go to Resources for Teachers

Helpful Thinking Cards

Highlighting ways of thinking positively.

Card describing how by solving small problems we can help our mental wellbeing

Card showing the process and affect of solving small problems on how we feel

Learning tool to help young people identify false facts and not let them affect their mental health

Thinking Card with a cartoon showing how false facts can start to invade the truth inside our brains

Description of the importance of never giving up mentally

Image showing a young person not giving up when faced with a tough challenge

Mental health teaching resource to teach young people to change their mental channel and not get stuck worrying about particular things

Diagram showing someone changing a mental channel to focus on positive thought patterns

Unhelpful Thinking Cards

Identifying unhelpful thought patterns.

Thinking Cards Mental Wellbeing Teaching Resource

Thinking card telling kids to get to know their strengths and to try to use them

illustration of a man using his mental strengths

education for kids about learning to grow their optimism to improve their mentall wellbeing

diagram showing the helpful thought pattern of growing your optimism

Learning tool that tells young people to focus on living in the present

illustration of the helpful thought pattern of staying in the moment and not worrying about the past

educative tool about the helpful thought pattern of thinking about positive memories

diagram showing someone reliving their positive and happy memories

mental health teaching resource to help kids think about breathing calmly to achieve a sense of calm

card showing a young person using their breathing space to achieve a sense of calm

teaching young people to talk themselves up whenever they feel down or the going gets tough

young people talking themsleves up to feel more confident

teaching resource for children to take the time to focus on all of their senses to help their mental wellbeing

a card that teaches young people to frame problems differently

education for young people about snowballing, where you let a small problem turn into a big one that negatively affects your mental wellbeing

diagram illustrating the unhelpful thought pattern of snowballing

thinking card drawing kids attention to mind reading, when we start to believe that nothing will ever change

mental health education about flooding, when we let our emotions control us and think everything around us is bad

mental wellbeing learning tool that explains the issue when people start to blame themselves for everything when something starts to go wrong

the feeling of always blaming yourself for something going wrong

illustration of flooding, where all our thoughts become too much and overwhelm us

explaining the problem when we jump to conclusion in our head and assume the worst

illustration of someone jumping to conclusions

mental health education tool that tells people that it is ok to be wrong, we can learn form our mistakes

illustration showing that it is ok to be wrong

card telling young people that we can improve our mental wellbeing by kicking bad thoughts and keeping good ones

removing unhelpful thoughts and keeping helpful thoughts

card drawing kids attention to the trap of thinking everything we do is rubbish

illustration of the mental phenomenen of trash talk, where we think that everything we do is rubbish

resource for teaching young people not to get stuck in the future and try to predict everything that will happen

crystal ball illustrating the issue of always thinking about the future

thinking card that draws young people's attention to the scenario where we block out postivie thoughts

learning tool to help stop children thinking that nothing can ever change

diagram showing all the mental barriers that can make us think that nothing can ever change

education for kids to improve their mental health by not magnifying small problems and stopping them dominating our thinking

magnifying unhelpful thoughts can make us feel bad

identifying the thought pattern where we think that if one thing goes wrong then everything goes wrong

young person thinking that if one thing goes wrong then everything will go wrong

learning tool to help children identify the unhelpful way of thinking when you start to look at everything with negative glasses

illustration of the negative thought pattern of looking at the world through negative glasses and thinking everything is bad

Teaching Resources

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Skeleton Scheme of Work

This gives teachers an example scheme of work for mental wellbeing teaching with Thinking Cards. The scheme sets out 12 weeks of work.

Helpful ThinkingCards A3 Poster

A3 poster of 'helpful' ThinkingCards for you to cut out and use as a learning tool.

Lesson 1 - Inaccurate Thinking & Cognitive Distortions

This lesson is about identifying inaccurate thought patterns. This lesson introduces the ideas of inaccurate thinking, unhelpful thinking and cognitive distortions.

Accurate Thinking Plan

This will help you and your students to create a reference sheet to identify and encourage accurate thinking. It poses simple questions to get students thinking about the work they have done and how they can use Thinking Cards techniques to help improve mental wellbeing.

Unelpful ThinkingCards A3 Poster

A3 poster of 'unhelpful' ThinkingCards for you to cut out and use as a learning tool.

Lesson 2 - Accurate & Positive Thinking

This lesson introduces the ideas of accurate and positive thinking as ways of improving mental wellbeing. Students will learn to identify examples of positive thinking and create an accurate thinking plan.

Using ThinkingCards in a
One-to-One Mentoring Session

This resource is an article written by Neel Burton M.D about some common unhelpful thought patterns experienced by those suffering from depression. Burton gives very helpful examples on how to challenge some of these unhelpful thought patterns.