When Princess Catherine boarded the coach with a group of Reception children from All Souls CE Primary School, London on their way to the National Portrait Gallery earlier this year, the children were so excited they felt as though they had stepped into a scene from the Katie In London books. Their day began so magically, they could hardly believe it would get any better. But what followed was a trip to the Bobeam Tree, a magical tree with colourful leaves that thrives when surrounded by stories. This tree was ‘growing’ inside the National Portrait Gallery – and the children went on an interactive trail to discover the stories of people through portraits, which they would ‘feed’ to the tree to make it strong and healthy.
The interactive trail, based on the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood's Shaping Us Framework, ran in February and March and was aimed at increasing awareness and understanding of the importance of social and emotional skills across society. Four- and five year-olds from All Souls were the first to experience the trail on the launch day, accompanied by the Princess, who introduced herself as Catherine.
‘The children loved exploring the enchanted tree – it had lots of different textures, which stimulated their senses, and they loved reaching into it and discovering toy insects and creatures,’ explains EYFS lead Rebecca Leow-Clifford.
Children also took part in an activity with a one-way mirror where they explored how faces can express feelings and emotions.
‘Many of the emotions were exaggerated – such as anger, shock, surprise or sadness – and they had so much fun guessing them, especially when the Princess popped into view pulling a funny face,’ Leow-Clifford says.
The final part of the trail was a workshop where the children created self-portraits, considering the expressions on their faces and how to capture them using their drawing tools. Princess Catherine was on hand, talking to them about their portraits and asking them what emotions they had depicted. Once they had finished their self-portraits, they put them into a drawer in the curiosity chest, which magically ‘fed’ the portraits and their stories to the Bobeam Tree. ‘They were fascinated by the chest of drawers that magically swallowed up their portraits,’ explains Leow-Clifford.
BACK IN THE CLASSROOM
Although PSED and PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) are already high on the agenda at this inner-city London primary school, Leow-Clifford says the Shaping Us Framework has helped bring a ‘fresh focus’ to the importance of PSED.
The framework identifies 30 key skills that are essential for children's growth and wellbeing, organised into six core clusters: knowing ourselves, managing our emotions, focusing our thoughts, communicating with others, nurturing our relationships, and exploring the world. The clusters act as a roadmap, with a balance of structure and adaptability for different early years contexts.
Leow-Clifford says, ‘The framework complements the EYFS and Development Matters. The specific skill clusters have helped us assess what we currently offer, look to see if we can offer more, and consider how we can make slight adaptations to create learning environments where all children can thrive.’
Inspired by the gallery visit, one of the first changes Leow-Clifford introduced in her Reception classroom was placing mirrors in the calm corner to encourage self-reflection.
‘Since adding them, we've observed how the children use them. One little girl, for example, watched herself crying in the mirror after becoming upset. After a while, she stopped crying and became curious about her facial expressions. It was as if the logical part of her brain activated when she could see herself experiencing the emotion. This helped her calm down more quickly, allowing us to support her through co-regulation strategies.
Seeing emotion reflected
‘Other children just like to go to the area with their friends, look in the mirrors and compare their expressions, giving them a sense of self,’ she adds.
Another area of focus has been around nurturing relationships. ‘We've introduced puppet role play to support conflict resolution, along with more team games and challenges. Although this was already happening when conflicts arose during child-initiated learning, we wanted to cover it in adult-led learning, modelling it so the children can further practise their skills during free play,’ Leow-Clifford says.
EMOTIONAL GROWTH
Supporting children's social and emotional growth and emotional literacy is actively woven into all parts of the day at All Souls Primary School. Teachers encourage empathy through storytelling; children are encouraged to co-regulate in the calm corner and use the Colour Monster chart to talk about their different emotions throughout the day.
Teachers also use Emotion Coaching techniques to support the development of self-regulation skills. For example, when a child experiences a challenging emotion, the adult is on hand to identify the feeling, validate it, give children the tools to describe how they might be feeling and offer solutions.
Leow-Clifford says, ‘The other day, a child said “I'm feeling jealous” when someone was playing with Pippin the Penguin. Being able to label their feelings is amazing. They still might get angry, but we are able to offer strategies to help them calm down. For example, we ask, “Do you want to squeeze something? Do you want to do some drawing? Do you want to hug a soft toy under a blanket?”’
Daily PSED intervention groups are held for children who need extra support. ‘Some children still struggle to regulate their emotions and aren't quite on track with their early learning goals. They find it difficult to take turns, or share. We play a game with a different objective in mind each week and the adults, and a couple of children who are good at sharing and turn-taking, model the behaviour,’ Leow-Clifford says.
The children in the one-form Reception class also have weekly PSED lessons covering three areas: regulation building, building relationships and managing self.
SUPPORTING RESILIENCE
PSED lays the foundation for resilience by fostering emotional strength, social connectedness and personal confidence. With this in mind, Leow-Clifford is now exploring how to deliver the curriculum more intentionally through a PSED lens. Take a recent junk-modelling exercise, for example, where children were encouraged to build their own planes, cars and vehicles for a transport topic.
‘Usually, I would model how to do it. I would show the resources, explain how to join the materials together and show an end product. But instead, I modelled how I couldn't do it. This is a great way to support children who lack resilience. We then worked through a solution together,’ she says.
Shaping Us Framework: the six clusters
Here are the six clusters and an overview of the skills they relate to: Source: The Shaping Us Framework: Shaping Us
Know Ourselves: who we are as individuals: Understand our own thoughts, feelings and beliefs
- Take charge of our life
- Have hopes for our future
Manage our emotions: How we understand, process and manage our emotions
- Recognise and name emotions in ourselves and others
- Have ways to manage our emotions
Focus our thoughts: How we effectively learn, work and manage in life
- Focus our attention
- Be aware of and direct our thoughts
- Weigh up information
- Make decisions that are right for ourselves and for others
- Solve problems
- Pause before we act
- Be flexible
- Keep going
- Bounce back
Communicate with others: How we receive and share feelings, thoughts and information
- Listen to and understand others
- Express ourselves
Nurture our relationships: How we get along and build relationships with others
- Accept others for who they are
- Understand and feel someone else's emotions
- Understand what someone might be thinking
- Be kind
- Give freely
- Get on with others
- Build positive relationships
- Love and be loved
- Work well with others
- Set and respect boundaries
- Manage conflict
Explore the world: How we explore and discover the world around us
- Be curious
- Be creative
- Feel joy
MORE INFORMATION
- Katie In London by James Meyhew (Orchard Books)
- www.kapowprimary.com/subjects/rse-pshe/eyfs-reception-2
