ADVANCE

Support your child through their education with A D V A N C E.

Head to our website to find out more on how we can support you so that your child can thrive in school.

The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that evolved most recently, and it can be sensitive to temporary everyday anxieties and worries. When things are going well, the prefrontal cortex acts as a control center that keeps our baser emotions and impulses in check.

Acute, uncontrollable stress sets off a series of chemical events that weaken the influence of the prefrontal cortex, whilst at the same time, strengthening the dominance of older parts of the brain.

It transfers high-level control over thought and emotion from the prefrontal cortex to the hypothalamus and other structures. As the older parts take over, we may find ourselves consumed by undesirable emotions such as anxiety, stress, anger and being impulsive.

Neuroscience suggests simple ways to help manage these psychological experiences.



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Image: @ SamPadmore LinkedIn
Research: Arnsten, A., Mazure, C. M., & Sinha, R. (2012). Neural circuits responsible for conscious self-control are highly vulnerable to even mild stress. When they shut down, primal impulses go unchecked and mental paralysis sets in. Scientific American, 306(4), 48.
Heatherton, T. F. (2011). Neuroscience of self and self-regulation. Annual review of psychology, 62, 363-390.

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Another devastating headline. The number of young people in need of emergency mental healthcare in England has soared by more than 50% in three years, according to NHS data. It feels like every week we see new stats that show the scale of the mental health emergency increasing. It’s tough. Young people are struggling. And those in power are not acting urgently enough.
We need more early intervention.
We need places where young people can go when they first start struggling.
No young person should have to reach crisis point to get the support they need. That’s why we’re calling for early mental health support hubs in every local area - a place you can walk in and get support. No appointment or referral needed.
If you believe in early intervention as much as we do, tap the link in our bio to add your name to our open letter to the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt. Let’s do what we can to

📰 The Guardian

Neurodiverse individuals experience differences in their executive functions. Executive functions are cognitive processes that allow us to plan and organise our thoughts and actions.

All of the students I support have executive functioning differences that many neurotypical’s don’t always understand or see it is a part of their neurodiversity.

Part 1.

I made this simple pdf to help others understand how it can affect individuals in different ways and reiterating why they have difficulties to succeed in the conventional education system.

Neurodiverse individuals experience differences in their executive functions. Executive functions are cognitive processes that allow us to plan and organise our thoughts and actions.

All of the students I support have executive functioning differences that many neurotypical’s don’t always understand or see it is a part of their neurodiversity.

I made this simple pdf to help others understand how it can affect individuals in different ways and reiterating why they have difficulties to succeed in the conventional education system.

Part 2.

Executive functions are fundamental to accessing education and being able to learn effectively. Many children experience executive dysfunction and those students tend to have “behavioural issues” or really struggle in the education system.

Simple changes and acknowledgements to executive functioning can change a child’s whole experience at school and enable them to build fundamental skills that will last them a lifetime.

5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique

This technique is a very well known and simple way to help deal with anxiety. I use this often with one of my students who really struggles to cope with change and general anxiety. It really helps focus on the present moment and take away focus from worries about potential future events. After this, it is much easier to talk rationally about their worry and come up with an action plan

In my current job, one of our schools priorities is attendance. Our pupils are from an area that is ranked in the top 5% of the most deprived areas in England. There is always a reason as to why a child is not coming to school or refusing to come. As it’s school refusal awareness week I thought I’d share this post that I saw on Linked In to help raise awareness for a really important topic.

Emotional Regulation II - LABELLING

Young people often don’t have a deep understand of what they are feeling. Developing a wider range of vocabulary you can use to help label emotions is the first step in helping you overcome hardship and negative situations.

This is definitely one of easiest things to implement in your day to day life to help improve your emotional regulation!

My new project 📚

My new role as a Social, Emotional and Academic Mentor has been the most eye opening and rewarding role I have ever had 💙 And I want to share the many things I’ve learnt with you all! Including some of the most helpful resources that have allowed the children to learn and grow and i@prove their emotional regulation!

They are all based off of CBT and mindfulness techniques.

This post just provides a bit of background about what these kids are facing and how important school really is to them.

Inspirational quotes and thoughts from 📖📖📖 definitely adding this to my reading list 👀

Quick Update!

Quick Update!

PERFECTIONISM Part II

Anyone who is drive, motivated, hard working and has aspirations and goals will have probably experienced perfectionism behaviours before.

Perfectionism can present itself in different ways for different people and it can be a factor in how we succeed as it pushes us to strive to be our best. However, perfectionism can and does have negative effects on our thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

Before running through some tips on how to over come and challenge perfectionistic traits, let’s get down to basics and understand what perfectionism is.

A few of my favourite quotes from recent post from “Don’t Forget to Sing in the Lifeboats”

Adversity - a difficult or unpleasant situation, a state of hardship. Each individuals experience and definition of adversity will be different. But whatever struggles you are going through in your personal life, your career, your sport or any life domain, when you come out the other side you will have learnt so much about yourself and the world around you. Life lessons are often the hardest to grasp, understand and overcome but will be the most rewarding when you do so.
Just simply start by becoming more aware of your present situation and acknowledge your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. From there you can begin to reflect, control and cope better with whatever life throws at you.

& never be afraid to talk 💚

Acknowledging when we don’t know, we are unsure or we don’t understand gives us the opportunity to learn, grow abs adapt. Remember mindset is a choice (Photo )

Repost 💛💙

POSITIVITY

We as humans in general are very good at focusing on the negatives. We put more energy and give more attention to the negatives over the positives, even when the positives outweigh the negatives!

Here are a few prompts that can help you train your brain to be more positive from day to day

Sunday Morning Motives - Make your goals SMARTER📖

Whether you want to read a chapter of your book by the end of the week or get a new PB on your 5km run, making SMARTER goals and targets will help you be more proactive and productive when working towards goals.

Tyson Fury appreciation post 💪🏼

PERFECTIONISM

Anyone who is drive, motivated, hard working and has aspirations and goals will have probably experienced perfectionism behaviours before.

Perfectionism can present itself in different ways for different people and it can be a factor in how we succeed as it pushes us to strive to be our best. However, perfectionism can and does have negative effects on our thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

Before running through some tips on how to over come and challenge perfectionistic traits, let’s get down to basics and understand what perfectionism is.

THE PENALTY SHOOT OUT SERIES | EP2

Episode 2 of The Penalty Shootout Series will be out on YouTube by the weekend! Keep your eyes peeled 👀👀👀

ACHIEVEMENT GOAL ORIENTATION

Following on from the Attribution theory with looking at success and failure, the ACHIEVEMENT GOAL theory helps further understand individuals motivations and general behaviour in performance settings.

What do you attribute your success and failures to?

The ATTRIBUTION THEORY is a basic psychological theory that deals with how individuals/teams explain the causes of an outcome/event/behaviour.

This theory has influenced other theories and has further helped understand human behaviour in other domains.

CHOOSE YOUR MINDSET

Your mindset is such an important concept of every day life and even more so when you are trying to reach your goals, whether that be in business, sport, relationships or just simply trying to better yourself.

The more you become aware of your thoughts and behaviours, the better understanding you’ll have of what mindset you tend to have and this then allows you to potentially change aspects of your mindset in order to unlock more potential.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of supporting Matt & George at the Earl Shilton Guy Fawkes Trial. It was great to observe and analyse a more niche sport as well as witnessing a lot of potential talent in the young riders!

An all round great day (despite the torrential rain) with George winning his division (EMC Youth D) and Matt finishing 3rd (Adult and Youth A Championship)

START WITH WHY. Inspired by Simon Sinek

Our new YouTube series (episode 1) will be live in 30 minutes!

I have broken down the first two chapters in the book in a way that will hopefully influence the way you think about the world around you. The main aim is to get you to start asking yourself WHY and the reasons behind the importance of this question.

Our first YouTube video is about to go live 🖥 ⏰

Over the next few weeks I will be reviewing and relaying the research about penalty shootouts. It was one of my favourite topics to study at university as the impact of psychology is endless! I know not everyone likes football however the skills and strategies used can be applied to many different sports so please still give it a watch!

Episode 1 focuses on anticipation and anxiety.

I’ve kept the video short and sweet so you get a video full of information and advice! Any feedback would be much appreciated 💙

Next episode: The stages of the shootout

WHAT IS SPORT PSYCHOLOGY🥎🏅

There are many misconceptions about what sport psychology is and how it is utilised for athletes, coaches and in sport in general. We want to break it down for you and help you understand more about the benefits of having access to sport psychology support