My Wellbeing – Year 1
My Wellbeing – Year 1 is the first book in a new Junior Cycle SPHE series from Anne Jones, Anita Stackpoole and Fiona Chambers, the bestselling authors of the Junior Cycle SPHE series, Minding Me: My Wellbeing and the Senior Cycle SPHE textbook, It’s My Wellbeing.
My Wellbeing is based on the new SPHE Short Course specification.
This Year 1 book from the series covers all 4 strands. A spiral approach is used to unpack the learning outcomes appropriate for First Year from each strand.
Feedback from teacher & student focus groups on the Short Course specification has been incorporated into our series:
- ensuring empathy is the foundation of all learning throughout the course.
- widening the lens to include social responsibility rather than just individual rights.
- using dialogue in the classroom as a learning strategy.
- acknowledging that students are not always the main decision makers over all aspects of their lives.
Pair work and group work provided via plenty of easy-to-follow activities.
The three cross-cutting elements – Awareness, Dialogue and Reflection & Action – appear throughout all chapters, referenced by clear icons.
Case studies occur throughout the book dealing with issues that teenagers will find relevant.
My Wellbeing – Year 1 is supported by a free Teacher Resource Book with the essential key points to know from the Specification, as well as guidance on tackling key topics and tips on how to teach the course.
Our experienced SPHE authors have compiled a series of podcasts to help time-short teachers as they approach this new specification.
Podcast series
A 4-part episode series has been developed by our authors. Episode One is now available to listen. Click the Podcast Episode 1 tab on the top of this page to listen now.
This first episode covers a lot of ground, including (but not limited to) the differences between the previous SPHE course and this new course introduced in Sept 2023, can a teacher learn to love teaching SPHE, can you teach the course in the time allotted, what takes longer to teach than you expect, how much group work is enough, SPHE homework: yes or no, the use of walking debates in the SPHE classroom.
Happy listening!
Each of the 4 chapters opens with a page explaining the aims of that chapter, which JC key skills are covered in the chapter (and how). This page also shows teachers at a glance which Learning Outcomes are covered, gives the reader a brief introduction into the main topics of the chapter and reminds the student to ‘bring their avatar’ with them as they travel through the chapter. There are 5 avatars to choose from at the beginning of the book. Students can choose any of the 5 avatars to complete a variety of empathy activities throughout the book.
Avatars
To help build empathy, our authors created five avatars to travel on the journey with the students. They are Abbie, Bill, Caroline, Dara and Eya. Students choose an avatar to work with in the chapters. End-of-chapter activities encourage empathy towards their chosen avatar, others and themselves.
Empathy map
Activities at the end of each chapter help build empathy by asking students to consider a topic from that chapter from the point of view of their avatar. Step by step instructions support students as they walk through everyday problems their avatar may encounter.
Pair and group activities
Pair and group activities occur frequently and students are encourages to discuss their responses to questions with each other or in small groups.