Our staff CPD sessions take place after-school throughout the school year, and last week we were pleased to have the opportunity to offer a taster introduction session on Emotion Coaching, led by our Trust Behaviour Lead, Nathan Smith.
Post-Covid, schools and students are faced with new challenges, and our CPD strategy aims to offer training which will help to address these challenges.
Emotion Coaching is an approach that helps support students in recognising their own feelings and emotions. The Emotion Coaching approach helps to teach students about positive coping mechanisms whilst exploring strategies to help manage positive and negative emotions. Emotion Coaching is a form of communication between an adult and a student; how we can help encourage students to be attuned with their own emotions and feel confident in overcoming emotional challenges.
A number of teaching staff, senior leaders, support staff and teaching assistants participated in the training. The first part of the session looked at triggers that provoke an emotional response as well as some of the theory of Meta Emotional Regulation. The second part of the session explored four steps to help coach students through their emotions and emotional reactions. These steps include: recognising a student’s feelings and empathising with them; validating the feelings and labelling them; setting limits on behaviour; problem solving with the student. Staff feedback following the session was very positive.
Sam Sullivan, Assistant Headteacher, said: “This is such a valuable area of training and we were very pleased that Nathan was able to deliver the session with us. With his guidance, we will look to offer more opportunities to develop our expertise on Emotion Coaching over the coming year.”
Matt Allman, Headteacher, added: “We work very hard as staff to build up relationships with children and this is always done through a mixture of support and challenge. All relationships are a two-way process and so it is up to us all as individuals to take as much responsibility as we can for how we handle ourselves when dealing with others. This training programme will be rolled out more fully next academic year and this latest session is very much about getting the ball rolling on what is an adaptation of what we already on a daily basis.”
More information on Emotion Coaching can also be found here.
