Social & Emotional Education

At Stocksbridge Junior School, every child is a child that is socially and emotionally accomplished – social and emotional development provides a firm foundation for success, both now and in the future.

Intent

At Stocksbridge Junior School, wellbeing is our core concern. Our ambition is for all of our children to be the best that they can be, academically, socially and emotionally.

We aspire to have a clear focus on social and emotional development to ensure that children develop high levels of social and emotional skill and, as a result, are enabled to access life and learning successfully in many contexts.

We aim for our approach to be guided by current research and good practice. With this in mind, we are a Thrive school, embracing the Thrive approach to guide our social and emotional curriculum. The Thrive approach draws on the latest research into neuroscience, child development theory and attachment theory. This suite of research helps us to understand children’s social and emotional behaviours and how teachers, parents and other professionals can best support cumulative progress in social and emotional development.

Our intention is to provide the best possible relationships and experiences for all children, in line with their developmental stage, to support social and emotional development.

Implementation

Positive Relationships

Positive relationships are at the heart of our approach. We work hard to develop a tailored approach to building positive relationships with all children, adjusting these relationships where needed, in order for all children to feel that they are supported to achieve socially and emotionally.

Our Approach

We support:

All children in developing healthy, age-related behaviours through right-time approaches.
Children that may communicate interruptions to their social and emotional development (through behaviours that may not be regarded as age-related) with reparative, tailored approaches.

Assessment

All of our children are assessed termly to establish how they are developing socially and emotionally. These assessments are observational assessments, made by adults who know the children, against known end points for key stage 2. Assessments advise whether each child’s behaviours are age-related or not. Assessments advise our classroom (right-time) approaches and also our reparative approaches for those children that may need additional support. This process includes assessment of Year 2 children whilst they are still in our feeder infant schools (in support of transition) and also assessment, where possible, of those children joining us mid-year (transfers from other schools, for example.)

Assessment information may also be used in many other ways – in considering environmental changes, additional support during transition periods, approaches to supporting healthy attendance, how we support parents, for example.

Assessment information may also advise our choices around the recruitment of any additional resources that may support need, either internally or externally.

Right-Time Approaches

Social and emotional development is a clear focus within our relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum and supports right-time learning for all. Units are planned strategically from half-term to half-term and from year group to year group to ensure clarity of focus and enabling of progress.

In addition, Thrive assessments provide clear points of focus for all classes across school, which also support right-time learning. These targets are introduced as part of our RSHE curriculum on a half-termly basis and are supported within the context of our RSHE work and other areas of the curriculum. These targets are also the focus of other mechanisms i.e. assemblies.

Reparative Approaches

Assessments may suggest that some children have interruptions to their social and emotional development and would benefit from additional one-to-one or small group support (reparative support). In these cases, additional assessments provide an overview of any additional social and emotional needs and reparative relational and environmental support that may benefit a child.

The specific vulnerabilities of individual children are also considered in the identification of those that may require reparative support.

Specific action plans, guided by reparative assessment, are delivered by or supervised by trained Thrive practitioners in order to support need and ensure progress.

Where additional need is clear and behaviour suggests this is appropriate, before school or lunchtime provision may be made available to individuals to support their development. External colleagues may also become part of support plans as appropriate. Additional school activities are often considered as opportunities in a suit of reparative support as felt appropriate.

Parents and carers are encouraged to engage with reparative support. Assessments are shared with parents and carers and possible approaches are discussed. Support for parents may be offered in many ways, i.e. a parent plan for implementation at home or attendance on our Family Thrive programme.

Reparative support may also be considered from other professionals where felt appropriate, i.e. from our mental health support worker or from external agencies, chosen in line with need.

Challenge and Support For All

Our behaviour policy, suspensions and exclusions policy and the principle of REACH we follow in school (Respect, Endurance, Aspiration, Courage and Honesty) provide clear containment within which social and emotional skills can grow, making clear our behavioural expectations, celebrating successes and also offering support and guidance, where needed, to individuals. Our home-school agreement also outlines our behaviour expectations, adding to clarity for children and also parents and carers.

Impact

When we get social and emotional development right, social and emotional progress is supported, and academic achievement follows – children are truly enabled to access life and learning.

When we get it right, other areas of focus, i.e. increased attendance, reductions in exclusions and readiness for the next stage of education, are also markers of success.

What do we see in the data?

Class assessments are conducted termly. Reparative assessments are conducted termly (or as required). Both assessments are conducted in order so that cumulative progress towards end points can be tracked and provision adjusted accordingly.

What do we see in our children?

Most importantly, progress is indicated by long-term changes in behaviour and also children’s engagement in life and learning.