Teaching Emotional Intelligence and Well Being

We have a three-tiered graduated approach to supporting mental health and well being here at Charles Dickens Primary.

Every child is taught the skills they need to be emotionally literate, self-aware and mentally well. The level of support each child needs to achieve these skills will depend on any barriers to learning and the level of social intelligence the child has when they join the school and what they remember as they move through the school. We can increase and blend support to ensure every child has the social and emotional skills to achieve their potential. Our team includes specialist teachers, learning mentors, family support, teaching assistants, trained pupils and an educational psychologist.

You can learn more about our three-tiered approach here: Positive Mental Health – A three tiered approach

Most children thrive with our ‘Step 1’ core provision. 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 therapeutic storytelling.

You can download our positive mental health scheme of work here.

You can learn more about RULER here

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.

You can download our emotional vocabulary map here.

To find out more about our wellbeing curriculum, click here

Sometimes, this core approach isn’t enough for a child and they need support in a smaller group focusing on a specific set of skills. You can find out more about our Tier 2 support here.

For a small number of children, individual support is the best match for their needs. You can learn more about this Tier 3 support here.