New project to help students build resilience and confidence during move to secondary school
SHINE Sunderland has awarded funding to a new transition and wellbeing project designed to help Sunderland students build resilience, confidence and emotional literacy as they move from primary to secondary school.
The ‘Brilliant Beginnings’ project, led by the Aspire North East Multi Academy Trust, will initially work with students at Southmoor Academy and Sandhill View Academy, helping young people navigate one of the most significant moments in their education journey.
Over time, the programme – which has received a grant of £79,200 – will expand to six schools across the city, helping 2,130 students.
The project is designed to support pupils from the very start of Year 7, using reading, reflection and structured wellbeing activities to help students develop resilience, self-awareness and positive attitudes towards challenge and growth.
The initiative forms part of SHINE Sunderland’s wider £11 million investment in education across the city, supporting innovative school-led projects aimed at improving outcomes and life chances for young people.
At the heart of the new programme is a focus on emotional literacy, resilience and reflective journaling, alongside reading activities designed to re-establish positive reading habits after the summer break.
Joanne Maw, CEO of Aspire North East Multi Academy Trust explained: “I hope this programme will give our children a sense of empowerment – that they will learn that their future is in their hands and that having difficulties is part of life. It’s the difficulties that allow you to grow.”
As part of the project, students will create their own reflective journals charting challenges they have faced and overcome.
“The diary will be about how they’ve struggled more than how they’ve succeeded,” Joanne explained. “We want to see struggle as part of the learning process.”
The programme has been inspired by the work of positive psychology specialist Andy Cope, also known as ‘Dr Happiness’, whose work focuses on what he describes as “mental wealth” rather than simply mental health.
Joanne said: “His training explores how the story we tell ourselves becomes the story that shapes our lives.”
The project has been carefully designed to ensure all pupils access the same experience during transition, regardless of which primary school they attended.
“We know that many schools have pupils arriving from lots and lots of different feeder primaries,” Joanne said.
“If we focus too heavily on just a few core feeder schools, we risk creating gaps before students have even arrived. We wanted this to be a shared experience for everybody.”
Rather than beginning in primary schools, the project will centre on transition days and the opening weeks of Year 7, ensuring all pupils can participate equally.
The project responds directly to challenges schools are increasingly seeing among young people transitioning into secondary education, including reduced concentration spans, increased social media use, attendance concerns and rising mental health pressures.
“There’s been a real change in concentration span,” Joanne said. “Many children are used to very fast-paced video content and constant stimulation. Having a book that you can return to over time, and that gives consistent messages and advice, is really important.”
She added: “We know that if attendance is poor in Year 6 and Year 7, it becomes much harder to address later on. We’ve really only got until the October of Year 7 to make an impact before patterns become embedded.”
The programme is designed to help students develop resilience before challenges fully emerge.
“It’s really important for them to understand, from the very beginning, that struggles are part of life – not something that only happens to other people,” Joanne said.
The project also complements several other SHINE Sunderland-funded initiatives already taking place across Aspire schools, including projects focused on emotional regulation, literacy and character development.
Joanne explained: “Each project addresses slightly different barriers. This one is about empowering self as an individual and helping students understand emotions before difficulties become embedded.”
Looking ahead, she hopes the combined impact of the trust’s projects will help students leave school with confidence, independence and a strong sense of self-belief.
“I would just love all of our students to know that they can achieve anything once they leave school,” she said.
“They’ll have built resilience, literacy skills, confidence and a sense of place – that really strong feeling of self-efficacy that you want every child to have.”
SHINE Sunderland is a city-wide partnership investing more than £11 million into secondary education across Sunderland over 10 years, supporting innovative projects designed to break down barriers to learning and improve future opportunities for young people.