At Stanley Primary School, we understand that an important feature of the school is to enable all pupils to develop emotional resilience and social skills, both through direct teaching for instance e.g. PSHE, registration time and indirectly with every conversation adults have with pupils throughout the day. 

Our values education project involves teaching the children 8 values throughout the year, and having a rewards system to praise those children who adhere to these values. The values are Aspiration, Cooperation, Courage, Gentleness, Honesty, Respect, Responsibility and Tolerance. Each week we give special certificates to those children who demonstrate good values, and these will be displayed in the office reception area. Please feel free to come and look at them!

As a school, we are making full use of the Socially Thinking© approach to support children’s emotional and social development, and to teach resilience and self-help strategies. The Speech and Language Service are supporting us to implement this programme across the school. We also use ‘Zones of Regulation’ as a whole school approach to teaching children about their emotions and how to recognise and regulate them if needed.

ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant)

An ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) is a member of Staff who is trained to support children in the development of their emotional literacy.  We currently have 2 members of staff who have started their training to become an ELSA.

What is emotional literacy?

• Understanding and coping with the feelings about ourselves and others
• Developing high self-esteem and positive interactions with others
• Being emotionally literate helps children focus better on their learning

Some of the areas the ELSA may work on:

• Recognising emotions
• Self-esteem
• Social skills
• Friendship skills
• Anger management
• Loss and bereavement

How does the ELSA work?

• A regular slot during the school week of around 30 minutes
• Sessions may be on a one off basis
• Sessions can be individual or in small groups and are tailored to the child's individual needs
• Sessions are fun and might include role play, board games, arts and crafts and stories
• They include time to talk
• A pupils’ progress will be reviewed

As a parent/carer how can you help?

• By informing the class teacher if there are any issues that may affect your child
• Please feel free to contact your child's teacher or SENDCO if you have any questions

The ELSAs in this school are Maxine O’Mara Roberts and Tara Cato.

The SENDCOs, with the consent of the parent, may feel it is appropriate to coordinate additional support for children to access for example, a key person, time with member of SLT or leadership team, an external referral to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service), or an external therapeutic intervention. The SENDCOs can advise where specialist therapeutic support can be found.

Some pupils may benefit from additional support through specific behaviour strategies, such as the use of social stories, time out spaces and personalised reward charts.

Please refer to our Anti-Bullying Policy for additional information regarding how we address issues around bullying at Stanley Primary School.