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 and the FEELIT progamme 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.

 

FEELIT

FEELIT has been developed by The Happy Confident Company it teaches and develops the emotional literacy of pupils.
I have been involved with the creation of FEELIT programme from the start, it's been a privilege to be involved in something that develops and enriches the emotion vocabulary of children from the early years and up. 

Under the Happy Confident Schools Programme FEELIT sits alongside the teaching of Mindfulness, Journalling and the specific teaching of life skills. 

FEELIT teaching Emotional literacy from the early years-
The FEELIT programme provides a classroom strategy that embeds an emotionally open culture and learning environment where pupils enjoy an increased sense of responsibility and citizenship.

Name it to Tame It.

Using an easy to access online platform FEELIT develops and builds the emotional vocabulary of every child in a school year on year.
When we are able to express the way we feel using a rich emotional vocabulary we learn to understand ourselves better and are better understood.

Using FEELIT children 

• become more self aware
• learn better self management
• develop a better understanding of others

• learn to explore and share feelings
• learn to self-regulate
• develop empathy and compassion
• learn to manage and better resolve conflict and make better decisions

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Please read the following article that I was asked to contribute to.
Teaching Emotional Literacy from Reception Up.
Headteacher Update August 2022

Click here to read an article published in The Telegraph in February 2016 about RULER written from a parent's point of view.
​"Mummy is having a yellow day..."

For more information read these recently published articles.
www.tes.com/magazine/article/cant-stop-feeling
​http://ideas.ted.com/should-emotions-be-taught-in-schools/-taught-in-schools/

Some of the schools that have successfully rolled RULER to date- DUCKS, Corpus Christi Primary School, Knightsbridge School, All Saints Primary School, Beeston Hall, Cokethorpe, York House, Aldenham Prep School, Willow on the Farm, Dumpton Prep School. 
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Please get in touch via the contact page if you would like to know more about SEL training in your school. 

​“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