My work takes me into schools to train whole school communities to embed Social and Emotional Learning into their school. The training I give goes beyond the classroom and includes the wider school community supporting all members from the administration teams to parents and carers. 

Why is this necessary?

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

SEL is beneficial to both children and adults, increasing self-awareness, academic achievement, and positive behaviours both in and out of the classroom. From an academic standpoint, students who participated in SEL programs saw an 11 percentile increase in their overall grades and better attendance.(https://www.nu.edu/blog/social-emotional-learning-sel-why-it-matters-for-educators/)

The five areas of SEL are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

Teaching these skills specifically gives children the tools they need to manage a complicated world where mental health has reached record levels. Prevention has to be better than cure. 

"The number of children in England needing treatment for serious mental health problems has risen by 39% in a year, official data shows. The Guardian January 2023" 
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• Social and Emotional learning is the process through which all young people acquire and apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes to- develop healthy identities
• teaches pupils how to manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals
• teaches pupils how to feel and show empathy towards others
• establish and maintain supportive relationships 

To do this I train teachers to use the RULER Approach in their classrooms alongside the staff training I give parenting workshops to support parents.
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The RULER Approach

The RULER Approach
​Created at The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence in the U.S. ​RULER is an evidence-based approach for integrating social and emotional learning into schools.​ RULER applies “hard science” to the teaching of what has historically been called “soft skills.” 
RULER is an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning that helps school communities integrate the practice of emotional intelligence into their daily school routine. 

"Emotions matter."

RULER is an acronym for targeted emotional skills including-
Recognising, Understanding, Labelling, Expressing, and Regulating emotion.


​RULER uses four specific tools to help schools enhance the emotional intelligence of school leaders, teachers, staff, pupils and their families, these are know as The Anchor Tools. Research also shows that when schools and homes partner to support children’s emotional development children not only feel better, they achieve better academically.

Emotions drive learning, decision-making, creativity, relationships, physical and mental health.

 

Some of the schools that have successfully rolled RULER to date- DUCKS, Corpus Christi Primary School, Knightsbridge School, All Saints Primary School, The Willow Nirsery , Clapham, Beeston Hall, Cokethorpe, York House, Aldenham Prep School, Willow on the Farm, Dumpton Prep School. 
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I have contributed to the building of the Think Equal curriculum where two of the RULER Anchor tools are used. Think Equal also commissioned me to write two books for the program these support the development of emotion literacy and emotion regulation with children in the early years. ​

​“The problem in schools for a long time has been that we haven’t given children a language of feeling. We haven’t given them ways of making sense and understanding the feelings and the emotions that often whirl within them.”
Sir Ken Robinson, EQ summit May 2017