Brilliant Bristol

Brilliant Bristol is a new scheme for year five students, aimed at spreading happiness throughout schools and beyond, hoping to instill positive attitudes for life.

Before starting school, I was both terrified and thrilled at the prospect it was going to be a mixture of Grange Hill and Road Dahl’s Crunchem Hall Primary in Matilda.

I was excited to learn, but daunted by the rules, hierarchies and long expanse of time in classrooms ahead of me. Of course, I quickly discovered it’s certainly not all about getting good grades at school; life skills, relationships and positivity are all nurtured from our childhood years in education.

This has been acknowledged in Bristol thorough a scheme supported by Bristol City Council as part of the wider Learning City development. Through Brilliant Bristol, year five children are being empowered to create their own happy curriculum ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’, with the aim of spreading their positive messages across their school, homes and local community. Through Brilliant Bristol’s training in positive psychology and happiness, the children will essentially become tutors of brilliance, attitude and confidence.

Andy Cope, happiness expert and author of the Spy Dog children’s book series devised the project: “There’s oodles of evidence – plus common sense tell us – that happiness is good for health, longevity, energy and learning. Although the science of happiness seems fairly simple the application is not quite so easy.

“My belief is that happiness is a great starting point in life so, rather than putting happiness off until the weekend or your next holiday, people can learn to be happy now. Happiness is also very good for communities. Happy people are more caring, sociable and altruistic and, hence, make better neighbours.”

Andy began the project while completing a PhD in the science of positive psychology (aka: happiness). He and Laurence Pitt, executive headteacher of Ashley Down Schools Federation, introduced the scheme to Bristol when Andy ran one of his workshops as a school inset day. They got chatting and decided to bring ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ to year five students

Laurence believes that children need a little helping hand to bring out that inner positivity and he is determined to spread the happiness. He says: “We think Brilliant Bristol will equip the children to deal much better with school. We also think it will set kids up to be confident, positive, upbeat, passionate and happy – things that go well beyond the classroom. It’s about aspiration – if you have the right attitude, the world is your oyster.”  

One of the year five’s tasks is guerrilla like in its scale, as on June 25 they have plans for a record breaking attempt of the most random acts of kindness in one day. Andy says: “They can be small things like giving someone a hug or helping cook the tea, or giving flowers or small gifts to friends and family. I know of one school where the children are planning to wash the teachers’ cars at lunchtime!

“We thought this project would be a nice way of demonstrating that happiness has all sorts of social benefits. Hopefully the children will realise that the quickest way to feeling happy is to do a good turn for someone else. In the modern self-centred society, it will be nice to turn the tables.”

This joyful, positive attitude must be part of to home life, too. As much as is possible, when the chips are down, it’s our attitudes that will get often us through. It’s often said that a happy parent makes for a happy child and this is something Andy supports wholeheartedly: “Happiness is also a key ingredient in successful parenting. Children pick up their habits from those around them and I believe that happiness is the most important legacy you will ever leave.”

www.brilliantbristol.org