Emotion Works Literacy Programme – Your Questions Answered

WHAT IS THE EMOTION WORKS LITERACY PROGRAMME?

The Emotion Works Literacy Programme is a self-contained 6-month online programme including training and teaching material to help schools introduce Emotion Works to pupils through literacy activities and themes. Learning outcomes for Emotional Wellbeing and Literacy (including vocabulary extension, talking, listening, reading and writing) will be identified across Early, First and Second levels of Curriculum for Excellence.

Online Inservice training is included for whole staff teams, with more in-depth online training and fortnightly check-in support for teachers over the course of the 2021-22 session. All resources and teaching materials are also provided digitally for convenience and online to help keep the package cost down.

 

WHAT / WHO IS EMOTION WORKS?

Emotion Works is a Scottish educational programme & organisation that puts learning at the heart of emotional wellbeing. Our expertise and reputation in supporting and improving outcomes in emotional education has been established over the past 8 years of operating as a social enterprise and community organisation. Our training and resources are for schools, teachers and educators to help children and young people develop emotional understanding and competencies through a range of learning experiences and curriculum activities.

We currently work with over 600 schools and educational services who share our vision of improving emotional learning and literacy in children and young people. The theory, research and now our own social impact studies demonstrate the benefits of teaching and talking about emotions within educational contexts as having a beneficial, resilience boosting influence on pupil mental health & wellbeing as well as having a positive impact on engagement and learning outcomes more generally.

 

WHY IS THIS A GOOD TIME TO TRY OUT EMOTION WORKS IN OUR SCHOOL? 

The goal of the Emotion Works Literacy Programme is to support schools to focus on improving both Literacy and Wellbeing outcomes at the same time since these are 2 vitally important aspects of education to get right during the Covid Recovery period. We will be running the Literacy Programme as our trial programme throughout the 2021-22 session so you can join in at any point during the session for 6 months. Emotion Works practice examples will be shared on an ongoing basis throughout the year for Early, First & Second level learning that sit perfectly alongside activities to help boost pupil vocabulary and help develop talking, listening, reading and writing skills .

Our last Trial Programme – the Emotion Works Recovery Programme – ran over the course of the 2020-21 session and took a similar overlapping approach to supporting Covid Recovery priorities with Emotion Works teaching when we provided training and teaching material for schools to help pupils process the impact of lockdown and to transition back to school using a Trauma Informed approach.

The coming together and sharing of practice across the hundreds of schools taking part on various social media and networking platforms was a pleasure to facilitate during the Recovery Programme year and we anticipate a similar community spirit and support network to emerge with our Literacy Programme. We are very much looking forward to welcoming new practitioners and schools to the #EWcommunity during the year ahead.

 

WHEN WILL THE LITERACY PROGRAMME LAUNCH & RUN?

We’ll be introducing the Literacy Programme within the Members Area of our new website during the week beginning Monday 9th August. It’s on sale now and will run until the end of June 2022.

Live inservice training sessions are running on 11th, 13th, 16th & 17th August, with recordings available to watch in your own time if you can’t join live.

Teaching ‘Week 1’ can start whenever works best for your school, but if you’d like to work through the Programme with our weekly prompting and publicity, we’ll be starting Week 1 on Monday 6th September.

For planning purposes for an Autumn term roll out, please refer to our overview schedule here

 

CAN YOU PROVIDE A BIT MORE DETAIL ON THE TRAINING & TEACHING ASPECTS?

TRAINING MATERIAL

A 2 hour Inservice Training for staff teams new to Emotion Works will be delivered live online on August 11th or 16th, or as a recording available from 12th August onwards.

We are also running 2 other live Inservice sessions on August 13th and 17th for schools and teachers who are already familiar and experienced in using Emotion Works and looking for ideas on embedding the approach across their school. The recording for that training will be available from August 14th.

Also online: Online Training Modules – amounting to 4 hours CPD, and comprehensively covering the Component Model Curriculum, Emotion Works Progression and Individual ‘Cog’ Modules

Fortnightly opportunities for live online check-ins / Q&A on Mondays 4:30-5pm – 30^th August | 13^th Sept | 27^th Sept | 11^th Oct | 25^th Oct | 8^th Nov | 22^nd Nov | 6^th Dec

Dates for January onwards tbc.

 

TEACHING MATERIAL

A 12 ‘week’ roll out of the Emotion Works curriculum following a Language and Literacy theme. This can be spread out over a longer period of time if you wish.

Suitable for all stages across the Primary School, and including Nursery and S1/2

Block 1: Introducing Pupils to Emotion Works

Block 2: ‘Word Works’ vocabulary focus

Block 3: An exploration of different emotions using a variety of literacy stimuli including books, excerpts, poems, movie shorts, film clips and more – incorporating Talking, Listening, Reading and Writing activities

Block 4: Finishing off with a 3-week novel or film study, or other emotionally themed stimulus.

 

WILL ALL TRAINING, PLANNING & TEACHING MATERIALS BE PROVIDED ONLINE?

Yes, for speed of set-up, ease of access and to keep costs down for people wishing to try out Emotion Works on a short-term basis, we provide all of the content for our Trial Packages as digital material. This includes training videos, slideshows, written guidance, web-links and a range of digital resources such as planners, posters and worksheets that can be printed off in school. Trial membership also includes access to our private facebook group, check-in support sessions and other online community activities.

Schools that already have Emotion Works hard copy resources will obviously be able to utilise these to enhance learning experiences with pupils, or new schools may decide to purchase a selection from our online shop. However, our ready-made hard copy resources will not be necessary to engage in the training and teaching aspects of the Literacy Programme.

 

HOW MUCH DOES THE EMOTION WORKS LITERACY PROGRAMME COST?

The Recovery Programme is free for existing Emotion Works customers, including those in the process of purchasing one of our standard full school packages.

For new schools the cost ranges from £300-£1000 depending on the size of your school, plus VAT. PURCHASE YOURS HERE

If you’d like to join in with the Literacy Programme roll out at this stage and then decide you’d like to upgrade to a full school package in the new year, all Literacy Programme customers will qualify for 20% off their full package cost if purchased within a month of their trial finishing.

To compare trial package with full school package information, please see our 2021-22 Session Prices & Packages flyer

I AM ALREADY AN EMOTION WORKS MEMBER – HOW CAN I ACCESS THE LITERACY PROGRAMME?

Anyone with an existing Emotion Works membership can access the Literacy Programme at no extra charge. Simply enter your usual login details to access the members area, and from 10th August onwards you’ll see the Literacy Programme content. This applies to individual memberships as well as schools.

 

IS THE EMOTION WORKS LITERACY PROGRAMME JUST FOR SCHOOLS IN SCOTLAND?

No, not just Scotland, but since that’s where we’re based and it’s where most of our existing schools are based we are delivering the live online training mid-August and starting the programme in early September to coincide with the return to school after the Summer break for Scottish pupils. However, there will be many schools signing up, starting out and taking part at different times over the course of the year.

 

 

WHAT IF I HAVE FURTHER QUESTIONS?

You are very welcome to get in touch with us via email or phone using office@emotionworks.org.uk or 0131 669 1122

Meanwhile, please feel free to browse the full Literacy Programme schedule below and if you’d like to join us simply click here to buy online.

 

View Literacy Schedule Overview