Social & Emotional Literacy

Here at Downs view we teach our pupils to be kind, respectful and empathetic. We help them to learn about their own feelings and what makes them feel great and not so great. We help them to think about and imagine what it must be like to be in somebody else’s shoes.

We support our pupils to develop a sense of social and moral responsibility and this means also learning about the needs, desires and aspirations of others too, not just about themselves.

We encourage and develop skills of working with others to achieve mutual goals which means listening to others as well as developing and articulating your own perspective and developing your own sense of self.

Social and emotional development is very important to us and it begins right from the time they begin in the Reception classes and continues throughout their journey at Downs View.

We  do this through play, stories, conversations, therapies, group discussion and whole class teaching.

Every child benefits from weekly whole class teaching and for this, we use a mix of approaches, which are based on a strong evidential base, and these include mindfulness, RULER and storytelling.

At the core of each of these approaches is the importance of giving children an emotional vocabulary, the time and space to listen and reflect on how they feel and a set of tools to help them move to a more positive set of feelings when sadness, frustration, anger, loneliness, grief are experienced. 

Teaching Emotional Intelligence  RULER Emotional Vocabulary Map Anchor Tools SEL Programme of Study Year 1 SEL Programme of Study Year 2