Anxiety awareness, worry management and thought reframing are at the centre of Mindmate-Journal-KS3, a wellbeing journal for KS3 students aged 11 to 14. It is likely to be useful for school pastoral teams, mental health support teams, school counsellors, SEN staff, parents and carers looking for a printable anxiety workbook for children, teens or young people who need structured emotional wellbeing support.
The journal begins with a simple “How am I feeling today?” check-in, using 0 to 10 rating scales for mood, school or college, friendships, home and anxiety. There is also space to record colour and date, making it suitable for repeated use across sessions so a young person can notice patterns in how they feel over time.
A short introduction explains that anxiety is a normal human experience and that the workbook is designed to help pupils learn why anxiety happens, how it looks and feels for them, and how they can practise skills to manage it. The visible workbook plan asks the young person to decide when and where they will complete take-home tasks, and who they can speak to if they feel stuck, which makes it practical for both school and home use.
Later pages introduce unhelpful thinking styles such as mind reading, prediction, compare and despair, critical self-talk, black and white thinking, catastrophising, emotional reasoning, mental filter and judgements. Each thinking style is paired with a prompt or question, helping teenagers challenge anxious thoughts in a CBT-informed way rather than simply being told to “think positive”.
The reframing page gives space to write an unhelpful thought and a more helpful thought, while the worry section separates practical worries from hypothetical or “what if” worries. These exercises could support one-to-one wellbeing sessions, small group anxiety work, PSHE activities, intervention programmes, or guided conversations with a trusted adult.
