When Towerbank Primary school asked for Claire’s help getting Emotion Works established across all classes of the school, it came right at the time when Emotion Works was ready to demonstrate how well it suits mainstream schools to support curriculum learning in Emotional Health and Wellbeing, Literacy and interdisciplinary learning. An added advantage for this first whole school roll out was that the school is very local for Claire which meant that meetings and teacher support could be scheduled in on a fairly frequent basis.
We started with a management meeting identifying where the school already was in terms of supporting emotional learning and well-being, then went on to discuss planning and diary dates over the coming months. It emerged that it would be good to work towards a learning showcase the following school session.
A keen group of teachers volunteered to form the ’emotions working group’ and were trained and supported by Claire to try out emotion works ideas and resources during the summer term of 2014. This allowed time for them to become familiar with the programme and anticipate staff training and resource needs for wider school roll out.
At a whole staff training session in August 2014 it proved very helpful to have the working group teachers sharing their own experiences with their colleagues, and after the training those teachers were very happy to act as mentors to their colleagues as they made a start trying out the Emotion Works resources. In January 2015 teachers were asked to incorporate Emotion Works planning into their termly plan with a view to sharing an example of class learning at an open evening for parents scheduled in March.
Throughout the project, Claire was happy to provide planning and resource ideas when required. By the end of the consultancy period, each teacher had identified a way to incorporate Emotion Works into their termly planning without it feeling like something extra they had to fit in.
Thank you Claire for your great ideas and support during the project and also for the use of Emotion Works which has proved to be an essential tool for health and wellbeing in our school, which we will continue to use.
It has been a pleasure working with you and there’s still lots to do!
Trish Morrison, DHT, Towerbank Primary School, Edinburgh
The showcase of learning was fantastic! To watch a video and find out about the different themes and topics covered by classes at different stages of the school click here
To read a more in-depth account of how the consultancy project was organised and progressed, please click on the link below.