Wellbeing

Help students regulate their emotions so that they can learn

• Draw their feelings, likes and dislikes gives students agency

• Self calming strategies (mindfulness, brain breaks, talking about feelings, breathing, drawing - How do I feel?)

• Throughout the day, help students learn to label their own emotions (e.g., 'It looks like you are feeling angry that we can't go outside, what can we do to help you feel better?')

• Pretend play is a great place to talk about emotions. Jump into their play and use emotions to talk about the stories they are creating!

• Students may benefit from additional opportunities for ‘core practice’ (SEL)

Believe that students can achieve academic success

• Make all expectations clear

• Break tasks down into subsets of learning

• Provide supportive and clear feedback

• Scaffold the tasks and the skills

• Acknowledge success and provide explicit feedback

Restore a sense of control and personal efficacy

• Explicitly model self-care strategies

• Talk clearly, simply and often about behaviours that matter

• Offer developmentally appropriate choices

• Create a quiet space such as a ‘peaceful corner’

• Create a plasticine area for calming agitated hands

Build strengths and capacity

• Opportunities to remind students of their strengths

• Provide students with opportunities to make informed choice based decisions throughout the day

• Give students a voice

• Affirm students when they use emotion words

• Encourage problem solving and affirm solutions

• Focus on the positive- provide positive feedback, affirm students who are displaying the correct behaviours

• STOP- THINK- DO

• Where is this behaviour coming from?

• Was it evident before the traumatic event?

• Respond calmly and clearly. Respond to the underlying emotions rather than the behaviour

• Model optimism and encourage students to see their strengths and coping skills

• Use hopeful and optimistic language

• Support students to set goals

• Use Seesaw activity Emotions Self -Reflection daily

• At the end of the day, have a debriefing session when each child gets to express an emotion they had during the day. Give them a prompted sentence to work with such as "Today, I felt ________ when ________ happened."

• Record concerns, observations and discussions and follow your school’s well-being and Check In procedures

• Look for signs that a student may need more help and follow your schools referral processes as appropriate

• Communicate at eye level

• Build trust

• Reflectively listen

• Document

• Allow the child to take the lead – they will guide the discussion, give them time to ask questions, discuss their feelings and emotions

• Reassure children by verbally acknowledging and ‘normalising’ their experiences

• Allow for a full range of expression