Curriculum Portal

neurologyYou need to know

• Stress is the body's response to pressure or demands and can be short-term (acute) or long-term (chronic), affecting thoughts, feelings, behaviour, and physical health.
• Healthy sleep patterns involve going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day, getting enough hours of sleep, and having few awakenings during the night.
• Typical physical signs of stress and anxiety include a faster heartbeat, tense muscles, headaches, feeling sick or having an upset stomach, sweating, and difficulty sleeping.
• Typical emotional and thinking signs of stress and anxiety include irritability, feeling overwhelmed, crying more easily, racing thoughts, and difficulty concentrating.
• Writing worries down helps by getting them out of your head, making them clearer and more manageable, and helping you decide which worries you can take action on now and which you can let go of for the moment.
• Helpful strategies to prevent stress building up include getting regular sleep, doing physical activity, planning and organising schoolwork, taking breaks, relaxing, and balancing time online with offline activities.
• Helpful strategies to reduce stress or anxiety in the moment include slow deep breathing, grounding techniques using the five senses, positive self-talk, problem-solving steps, and talking to a trusted adult or friend.
• Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose to the present moment, noticing thoughts, feelings, and body sensations with curiosity and without judgement.
• Unsafe online behaviours include sharing personal details publicly, posting images or videos you would not want teachers or family to see, and sending private content that could easily be copied or forwarded.
• Consequences of sharing personal content online irresponsibly can include embarrassment, bullying, damage to reputation, loss of future opportunities, identity theft, and unwanted contact from strangers.
• An internet algorithm is a set of rules or instructions that websites and apps use to decide what content to show each user, based on their data and behaviour such as likes, clicks, and watch time.
• Children aged 6–12 are generally recommended to get 9–12 hours of sleep per night, while young people aged 13–18 are generally recommended to get 8–10 hours per night.
• Simple sleep hygiene strategies include setting a regular bedtime, having a wind-down routine, keeping phones and other devices away from the bed, and avoiding screens at least 30–60 minutes before sleep.
• Social media overuse or addiction means using social media in a compulsive way that is hard to control and that interferes with sleep, schoolwork, relationships, or mental health.
• Cyberbullying is intentional harm carried out through digital devices or platforms where there is a power imbalance between the person bullying and the target; it may involve repeated acts or one online act that causes repeated harm through continued viewing or sharing.
• People may bully others online for reasons such as wanting power or status, copying peers, seeking revenge, prejudice, boredom, or feeling protected by anonymity and distance.
• Character strengths are positive qualities such as kindness, creativity, perseverance, honesty, leadership, and humour that influence how a person thinks, feels, and behaves.
• Focusing on and using personal strengths is linked to higher confidence, greater motivation, stronger relationships, and improved wellbeing, whereas focusing only on weaknesses can lower self-belief.
• Resilience is the capacity to recover from setbacks, adapt to difficulties, and keep going in the face of challenges, and it can be developed rather than being a fixed trait that you either have or do not have at birth.

• Design a realistic bedtime routine that includes consistent sleep and wake times, calming pre-sleep activities, and clear limits on phone or screen use before bed.
• Evaluate my social media habits by recording how often and why I use different apps, and reflecting on how I feel before, during, and after use to judge whether the pattern is healthy or harmful.
• Apply appropriate steps to respond safely and responsibly to cyberbullying scenarios by not retaliating, preserving evidence, blocking and reporting the account, reporting the incident to the school when appropriate, and telling a trusted adult.
• Identify my personal character strengths by reflecting on past experiences, noticing what I do well and enjoy, and using feedback from others or structured questionnaires.
• Construct a personal resilience toolkit that lists specific strategies, such as problem-solving steps, calming techniques, and positive self-talk, as well as supportive people and useful resources to use in future challenges.
• Identify personal stress triggers by reflecting on recent times you felt stressed and noting what was happening, who was involved, and how your body and emotions reacted.
• Practise slow deep breathing by inhaling gently through the nose for about four seconds, holding briefly, and exhaling slowly through the mouth for about six seconds, repeating until your body feels calmer.
• Evaluate whether to post something online by checking what personal information it includes, who might see it now and in the future, and what possible consequences it could have for you or others.
• Analyse your own social media or content feeds to spot patterns that may be shaped by algorithms and suggest at least two changes to your behaviour or settings to reduce negative or risky effects.