The School Sparkle Award Intitiative!

THE SCHOOL SPARKLE AWARD PILOT

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Schools Where Every Child Can Shine

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Have You Helped Someone Sparkle Today?

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A simple whole-school proactive approach to support early childhood mental and emotional wellbeing by promoting Social Emotional Learning (SEL), kindness, empathy, and inclusion. To encourage honest discussion and critical thinking between children, teachers, caregivers and parents to identify and respond to early signs of anxiety and emotional distress within young children.

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What is the School Sparkle Award Pilot?

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The School Sparkle Award is an early, proactive approach to social and emotional learning for children aged 3 - 7. It assists schools to intentionally develop and embed a culture where children feel seen, valued, included and respected. Honest discussion is encouraged to develop critical thinking skills and discover what children are really thinking, and practical ways to support and build positive relationships and strengthen mental and emotional wellbeing. This simple initiative nurtures confidence and belonging throughout primary schools and EYFS settings.

 

What will children learn?

 

• Recognise and name kindness, empathy and positive behaviour.

• Understand how words and actions affect others.

• Celebrate and respect diversity and inclusion.

• Build confidence and resilience as children grow.

• Develop children's social – emotional learning skills.

• Understand the importance of kindness and compassion.

• Promote positive mental health and emotional wellbeing.

• Children learn to communicate their feelings and opinions respectfully.

• Build self-esteem, resilience, and confidence in speaking up.

• Recognise that words and actions have consequences.

• Understand that small acts of kindness can make a big difference.

• An understanding and proactive approach towards bullying, effectively preventing bullying before it begins.

• Empower children to become thoughtful, compassionate and confident members of their communities.

• Recognise and challenge bullying behaviours.

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A culture of everyday kindness

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The pilot encourages all children and adults to make positive choices every day and provides opportunities for reflection and discussion based SEL learning. The guiding question is: “Have You Helped Someone Sparkle Today?”

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Why a proactive approach?

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Prevention is more effective than intervention. Kindness, empathy, inclusion and respectful communication are important life skills that benefit from being taught intentionally and not purely left to chance. By building positive habits and relationships from the earliest years, schools can give children the language, confidence and skills to respond positively to everyday challenges they may encounter in life. This helps create an environment where unkind behaviour is readily recognised and addressed early. Adopting a proactive approach promotes and supports positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in young children.

 

 

The resource

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The initiative is inspired by the interactive children’s picture book ‘Have You Helped Someone Sparkle Today?’ by Stephanie Bradley. The book immediately gets children to personally experience the sparkle ‘feeling’ and understand what it is to sparkle, and the feel good factor of helping others sparkle too. The pages feature a diverse cast of characters designed to support classroom discussion, anti-bullying, PSHE and wider whole-school wellbeing work. There are downloadable resources available from www.stephaniebradleyauthor.com to further extend learning.

 

The book also aligns with the following important relevant frameworks:

•NHS Long Term Plan: Focus on Early Mental Health Support for Children

•NHS Five Steps to Mental Wellbeing: Connection, Activity, Learning, Giving, Mindfulness

•NICE PH40: Social and Emotional Wellbeing in Early Years Settings

•Public Health England: Whole School and Community Approaches to Emotional Health

 

 

About Stephanie Bradley

 

Stephanie is a Teaching Assistant / HLTA with over 36 years’ experience in mainstream and SEND primary education. She holds a BA (Hons) 2:1 in Professional Studies in Primary Education. Her lifelong experience working with children inspired her to write ‘Have You Helped Someone Sparkle Today?’ and develop the School Sparkle approach to support children’s social-emotional learning, confidence, inclusion and wellbeing. The key message being:‘To inspire a generation of children who choose kindness, lead with empathy,celebrate inclusion, and have the courage to help others sparkle.Because when one child sparkles, they inspire another...and together, they can light up the world.’

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www.stephaniebradleyauthor.com