Programme Delivery Guide
This delivery guide is to support Health Mentors with the effective implementation of the neurocognitive development programme for Year 5 students in South London schools during 2022.
Unlike other courses hosted on this platform, this course has not been designed for you. Instead, the content is to be shared with the students you are working with using the classroom computer and smartscreen or interactive whiteboard.
The “Materials” tab above will take you to resources shared during the associated training event on 20 and 21 December 2021.
Programme Objective
To improve the brain health and associated cognitive performance of students.
Course Navigation
The lessons are found at the bottom of this page or you can go directly to the relevant term using the links below.
It will help you keep track of which lessons you have completed by pressing the “Mark Complete” button at the end of each lesson.
Impact Assessment
The following data will be collected throughout the programme to assess its effectiveness:
- Wellbeing Compass
- CNSVS Neurocognitive Assessments
- School attendance, behaviour and academic data
- Feedback from students and teachers
Neuro Lesson Structure
The neurocognitive development programme has been designed to deliver the best outcomes given the daily 30 to 40 minute time constraint. Previous iterations of the programme have been piloted and these results have informed this version.
Each lessons contains the following three components that must be delivered in the following order:
Description:
Students follow movements shown on screen using child actors from participating schools
Rationale:
- This part of the activity is designed to be fun so students look forward to working with you
- The state of student arousal is essential for brain development and these movements will release the epinephrine that is needed later in the lesson (NB Ensure that students are not too excited or over-aroused as a result of this activity)
- Performing novel movements that challenge students’ ability to balance primes the nervous system for learning and development
Note that the above rationale could be used to explain the importance of this lesson element to teachers and parents. Your description may need to be simplified for students.
Time:
5 minutes
Teaching Points:
- Health and safety comes first so ensure that there is enough space behind chairs and students are focussed
- Engagement and time restrictions are more important than correcting technical movement errors
- Before playing each video, challenge students to copy the movements on screen as precisely as possible
- You need to perform the movements as well to model good form and encourage participation
- Praising individual students for their effort and precision will release dopamine that will help in the short and long term
- Be disciplined with the 5 minute time allocation
Description:
Short daily micro-lessons that teach students more about their brain and how this programme will help them
Rationale:
- Explain the key reasons why the programme will improve students’ brain health and cognitive performance
- Encourage students to actively focus on their neurocognitive training exercises, engaging passively will have little benefit
- Increase the likelihood of students reaching the 20 hour target by training whilst away from school
Note that the above rationale could be used to explain the importance of this lesson element to teachers and parents. Your description may need to be simplified for students.
Time:
5 minutes
Teaching Points:
- Enlarge information on screen so students can see them clearly
- Plan for student participation and interactions within each lesson (see icons below)
- Discuss lessons with your teacher and use them wherever possible
- Classroom management of 30 students is not easy so maintain the pace of the lesson, keep it upbeat and praise regularly
- Be disciplined with the 5 minute time allocation, even if the response from students is positive
- Reinforce these messages as often as possible during the rest of your mentoring programme with Year 5 students
Description:
Supervised and customised use of the BrainHQ neurocognitive development platform with a programme training target of 20 hours
Rationale:
- Frequent, targeted and sustained stimulation of the brain in this way will heal neurological distortions and strengthen all brains
- Real focus during training exercises releases acetylcholine that shines a spotlight on the brain areas targeted, helping to activate the required neural pathways in the moment, for a while afterwards and during later sleep when rewiring takes place
- Ending neuro lessons with this activity will prime children for learning during the rest of the morning or afternoon session
Note that the above rationale could be used to explain the importance of this lesson element to teachers and parents. Your description may need to be simplified for students.
Time:
20 minutes
Teaching Points:
- Understand the software yourself and be prepared for administrative and access issues with the BrainHQ platform
- Encourage students to actively focus during training exercises and ensure that the atmosphere in the classroom is suitable
- Observations should be on students maintaining their focus and identifying those who may be struggling with their settings
- Encourage students to welcome and appreciate failures because these are opportunities for strengthening their brain
- Praise students for improvements, resilience and persistence, not for getting high scores
- Reinforce messages from Healthy Brains lessons that consolidate and “lock-in” daily gains, especially sleeping, relaxing and eating well (NB neural adaptations happen during sleep and deep rest, not during neurocognitive training or learning episodes)
Neuro Education Lesson Types
Neuro Movement and Neurocognitive Training components are more straightforward than Neuro Education. The content and format of these two components is consistent and requires less instruction. This additional guidance will support the second part of each lesson that will require more planning and preparation.
Neuro Education lessons within this course will fall into one of the following five daily categories. Click on the icons below for further information.
There is more flexibility with this lesson to respond to individual opportunities.
You should spend time looking at the leaderboard and discussing ways for students to increase their training time, at school and at home.
1. Getting Started – review welcome lesson
2. Daily Training Time – aim for 5 exercises per day (=10 active mins)
3. APS Club – recruit pupils for after school club
4. Training Focus – ensure classroom environment allows for required concentration levels
5. Training at Home – discuss use of home devices
6. Holiday Training – set a challenge for 30 mins per day
7. Half Time Check-In – review progress so far
8. Weekend Training – encourage 30 mins on Saturdays and Sundays
9. Sharing Ideas – what are pupils doing to get better?
10. Learning Recap – ask pupils what they’ve learned so far
11. Training Benefits – ask pupils if they’ve noticed any benefits in other lessons
12. Celebration – offer praise for group and individual performance
There are two types of brain science lessons – Brainy Facts and Brain Image Hotspots.
For the Brainy Facts, you could ask children to raise their hands if they think that the statement is correct.
The Brain Image Hotspots have four questions to answer. You could answer the first one and then select three different students to help answer the others.
The correct answers for Lesson TU4 (Neurons) are revealed when you hover over the purple numbers.
After watching the video you have a couple of minutes left to relate the content to the context of students.
The name spinner tool needs student names to be entered each time for it to work. Having these saved on a separate document will help with copying and pasting.
The random selection should help to keep all students engaged. Be prepared to help any students that struggle with examples of how each of the cognitive skills could help them at school and at home.
This micro lesson has two parts – the case study and the Mindskill.
You will need to enlarge the text for students to read the four options whilst you are reading them out. Ask a student “What Would You Do And Why?” and then check this response with another student to start a small discussion.
Don’t give the game away by sharing the scheme of work or lesson name with students beforehand. This will give them the name of the Mindskill! Also, be careful not to hover the cursor over the image too early when scrolling down the page.
You could pick your star performer of the week to be your Mini Mentor to help you lead this micro lesson.
Your Mini Mentor comes to the front, selects an image from the screen and asks their classmates if they know what the brain booster is.
Your Mini Mentor reveals the answer by clicking the link. You can then ask them how they perform in this area and what they could do to improve.
Weekly Check-In Mondays
Brain Science Tuesdays
Training Exercises Wednesdays
Mindskills Thursdays
Healthy Brains Fridays
Additional Neuro Education Guidance
- Different lessons are needed for Sessions 1 and 60 to open and close the programme
- You need to decide which lessons should be prioritised in the face of changes to the school timetable
- Where lessons may need to be cut short, the 20 minute neurocognitive training component should take priority
Welcome Lesson
The following lesson can be used as an introduction for students to prepare them for the next 12 weeks:
Enhancing Your Cognitive Impact
You should focus your after school club activity to Year 5 students involved in the programme. In particular, the right kind of physical activity club that will enhance their cognitive performance and executive functions.
The APS programme contains 12 lessons and provides the challenge and stimulation that will complement the cognitive development they are experiencing within their neuro lessons.
- Active Learning
- Physical Engagement
- Social Development
Encourage all Year 5 students to complete all 12 weeks of the APS course, ideally during the same term as their neurocognitive development programme. Delivery models to be repeated each term for both Y5 classes could include:
Six Week Programme
- Mondays and Fridays (15 students)
Twelve Week Programme
- Tuesdays (15 students) and Thursdays (15 students)
Remember the Golden Thread…
Are you making the programme fun?
Do students enjoy working with you?
Directly teaching students something and praising them on the progress they make is important.
This builds self efficacy, helpfulness and growth mindset.
Have you scheduled your after schools APS programme? Do you work hard to ensure maximum attendance?
Do you know each of the Year 5 students well enough to really believe in them?
Do you know their hobbies and what each of them is good at?
Do you know enough about the programme to actually believe that it is going work?
If you are going through the motions then so will the students.
How is your neurocognitive training going? What Mindskills do you need to develop? Are you using daily Brain Boosters?
