Big Talks for Little People is a collection of evidence-based programs for primary school aged children which aim to develop children’s understanding of their mental health and thereby enhance their wellbeing. The Australian and International Primary School programs and Out of Hours School Care program contain suggested activities for 6 lessons of 35-40 minutes each.
The Health and Physical Education program is mapped to the Australian Curriculum for HPE and contains 10 lessons for Health Education at each of Year 2, Year 4 and Year 6. The Little Sports People program contains 4 sessions of 15-20 minutes each and are tailored for use by coaches or support staff to encourage discussion about mental health in a junior sport setting
BIG TALKS FOR LITTLE PEOPLE - Program Introduction
International Schools Program
Discover wellbeing programs suited for primary school children.
WELCOME TO THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PROGRAM
Big Talks for Little People is a Mental Health Classroom program for primary schools, helping students understand their mental health and build wellbeing. It includes the theoretical background plus activities for 6 lessons of 35-40 minutes each, covering key mental health topics for young children.
Designed for all primary students, with particular focus on those affected by trauma, bullying, or other mental health challenges, the program supports early intervention and prevention. Teachers deliver the 6-lesson module via a digital platform, which is regularly updated to reflect current events (e.g. natural disasters). Downloadable lesson outlines are paired with digital animations to spark classroom discussion.
Australian Schools Program
Discover wellbeing programs suited for primary school children.
WELCOME TO THE AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL PROGRAM
Big Talks for Little People is a Mental Health Classroom program for primary schools, aligned with the Australian Curriculum for HPE and state HPE curriculums student achievement standards. It helps students understand their mental health and build wellbeing, with theoretical background on social and emotional learning plus activities for 10 lessons of 35-40 minutes each, covering key mental health topics for young children at Year/Grade 2, 4 and 6.
Designed for all primary students, with particular focus on those affected by trauma, bullying, or other mental health challenges, the program supports early intervention and prevention. Teachers deliver the 10-lesson module via a digital platform. Downloadable lesson outlines are paired with digital animations to spark classroom discussion.
OSHC Program
Discover wellbeing programs suited for children in OSHC care.
WELCOME TO THE OSHC MODULE
Big Talks for Little People is a self-sufficient online Mental Health Module kit for OSHC services, helping children better understand their mental health and build wellbeing. It includes theoretical background plus suggested and optional activities for 6 sessions of 35-40 minutes each, covering key mental health topics for young children.
Designed for all children in OSHC, with particular focus on those affected by trauma, bullying, or other mental health challenges, the module supports early intervention and prevention. Educators deliver the 6-session module via a digital platform, updated to reflect current events (e.g. COVID-19, bushfires). Downloadable session plans are paired with PowerPoints and short animations to spark discussion, with sessions flexible enough for Educators to adapt activities to individual and group needs.
HPE Program
Discover wellbeing programs suited for Health & Physical Education teachers.
WELCOME TO THE HPE MODULE
Here you’ll find everything you need to teach Big Talks for Little People in HPE mental health education, with units of work mapped to Year 1/2, 3/4, and 5/6 curriculum bands.
Before starting your year level’s unit plan, work through the Teacher Professional Development slide deck, which prepares you to teach the program and explains how to access the optional student and teacher implementation surveys used to evaluate its effectiveness.
Completing the PD and Teacher Resource sheets provides 2 hours of professional development mapped to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
Indigenous Children
Funded by Medibank and Breakthrough Mental Health Foundation
Sports Program
Discover wellbeing programs suited for kids focused on sports.
WELCOME TO THE SPORTS MODULE
Big Talks for Little Sports People is a flexible Mental Health Module for sports clubs and PE classes, helping players and students understand their mental health and build wellbeing through animations and awareness talks across one or more training sessions, so they can carry what they learn into their sports practice.
The program comprises 8 blocks covering key mental health topics, with a particular emphasis on social and emotional learning. Coaches and educators choose how many awareness talks to use from each block, depending on their available sessions, and deliver them via a digital platform in clubrooms or classrooms. The focus is on early intervention and prevention for each team or class. Sessions are downloadable and paired with digital animations to spark discussion.
Each lesson comprises a significant element of social and emotional learning. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) highlights the role of resilient and inclusive classrooms which provide new opportunities for group membership and creation of effective learning environments. In facilitating inclusion, it is important that all class members as well as their teachers develop the skills to understand one another, and to communicate and work together effectively.
These skills are important to all children, both children with special needs and to those without, in terms of overall social development, perceptions of belonging, and promotion of overall mental wellness, as well as mitigation of the development of mental illness.
Social emotional learning (SEL) is aimed at developing these skills and is generally defined as a process by which individuals learn to understand and manage their own feelings, understand and empathise with the feelings of others, communicate, resolve conflicts effectively, respect others, and develop healthy relationships.
Five competencies that are generally agreed to be core to Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) include.
“The Big Talks and its associated resources provide an ‘easy-to-follow’ framework for addressing children’s mental health and issues with school bullying in all its forms.”
“Individual teachers and school staff teams will find the package a practical and valuable guide to promoting wellbeing and resilience in schools.”
If you like to enquire about using the ‘Big Talks for Little People’ programs in your school, please fill out the form below with your details, and a member of the ‘Big Talks…’ team will get back to you as soon as possible. If you have any trouble when registering, please contact phillip.slee@flinders.edu.au