The Team Around the Learner

Those who have met me will have heard me use the term “Team Around the Learner” which is an approach to education that identifies schools, students and families as key stakeholders in ensuring each child is given every opportunity of success.

Students’ health, safety and wellbeing are essential to learning and development. At Mitcham Primary School we pride ourselves on providing an inclusive, safe, orderly and stimulating environment for learning to achieve and sustain students’ positive learning experiences.

Our teachers provide differentiated and targeted programs to meet the students individual needs through our evidence-based Wellbeing programs which include the Rights Resilience and Respectful Relationships, commonly referred to as Respectful Relationships (https://www.vic.gov.au/respectful-relationships) and School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (https://www.vic.gov.au/SWPBS).

The Respectful Relationships program teaches students to promote and model respect, positive attitudes and behaviours. It teaches our students how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence. Students are taught a sequence of lessons in eight topics of Social and Emotional Learning across all levels of primary and secondary education. At Mitcham Primary School, our students learn about emotional literacy, personal strengths, positive coping, problem solving, stress management, help-seeking, gender and identity and positive gender relations. We are committed to inclusion and diversity at Mitcham Primary School to ensure that our students have every opportunity to become thinkers, learners and leaders.

“Mitcham PS ensures equitable access to education for all students, so they can learn, thrive, and reach their full potential. Our vision is for inclusivity and support to allow all students to flourish.”

School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) is an internationally recognised approach with an extensive evidence base that is shown to improve behavioural, wellbeing, and academic outcomes for children and young people. Through this approach students and staff benefit from:

increased respectful and positive behaviour
increased time focused on instruction
improved social-emotional wellbeing
positive and respectful relationships among students and staff
create safe, orderly and respectful school-wide environments.

The combination of the two programs at Mitcham Primary School help to establish a common philosophy and purpose: Staff and students use a common language to discuss academic learning, wellbeing and behaviour to support their individual growth.

Why is it important?

Children and teenagers who can understand and manage their emotions are more likely to:

express emotions by speaking calmly or in appropriate ways
bounce back after feeling strong emotions like disappointment, frustration or excitement
control impulses
behave appropriately – that is, in ways that don’t hurt other people, things or themselves.
And this is good for children because it helps them learn, make friends, become independent and more.

Your child’s ability to understand and manage emotions develops over time. When your child is young, they’ll need help with understanding emotions. This mostly involves recognising and naming emotions, which lays the groundwork for managing emotions as your child gets older.

As your child grows, they’ll learn more strategies to manage their emotions without your help.

Understanding and managing emotions is also called emotional regulation. It’s an important part of your child’s self-regulation.

How can parents help to support this ongoing work at home?

Children 3-8 years: learning to understand and manage emotions

Children develop their ability to recognise and name emotions through plenty of practice. It’s easier for children to practise through play, when they’re relaxed, or before their emotions get too intense.

Here are ways you can help your child practise recognising and naming emotions:

Talk about the emotions that characters in books, TV shows or movies might be experiencing. For example, ‘Look at Bluey’s face. She looks sad’.
Read books about emotions with your child. To start with, you could try The way I feel by Janan Cain, All about feelings from Usborne, or F is for feelings by Goldie Millar and Lisa A. Berger.
Show your child how you recognise your emotions and help them to recognise theirs. For example, ‘When I broke that glass, I yelled really loudly. Does that happen to you when you make a mistake and feel angry?’
Help your child work out how their body feels when they’re experiencing an emotion. For example, ‘You look nervous. Have you got butterflies in your tummy?’
Give your child opportunities to explore emotions through play. Play ideas to develop preschooler emotions and play ideas to develop school-age emotions include messy play, drawing or painting, puppet play, dancing and music play.
Do an emotions activity with your child. You choose an emotion like ‘excited’ and act it out with your child. You can turn this activity into a simple guessing game.

You can also start helping your child learn simple strategies to manage their emotions. For example:

Teach your child ways to calm down from strong emotions like counting to 10 or taking 5 deep breaths.
Suggest ways to react to strong emotions – for example, clap your hands when you’re excited, ask for a hug when you’re sad, or squeeze your cushion really hard when you’re angry.

It can be hard for your child to use strategies like these when they’re very upset. They might shout, hit things or behave in other inappropriate ways instead. So you might need to help your child calm down. When they’re calm, you can help them understand that strong emotions are OK, but behaviour like shouting and hitting isn’t.

Pre-teens and teenagers: strengthening emotional skills

Pre-teens and teenagers often feel strong and sometimes overwhelming emotions like shame and humiliation. They might know the words for these emotions but still have trouble recognising them when they’re upset. Also, because of teenage brain development, teenagers don’t always have the skills to express and manage emotions in an adult way. That’s why pre-teens and teenagers still need help with understanding and managing emotions. With practice, your child will be able to manage their emotions without you.

Here are ideas to strengthen your child’s ability to understand and manage emotions in the teenage years:

Step in when you can see emotions building up. The sooner your child can spot their emotional changes, the easier it will be for them to stay in control of their behaviour.
Help your child notice early physical signs of strong emotions. For example, ‘When I was stuck in traffic yesterday, my heart was racing and I felt really hot. Does that happen to you when you’re frustrated?’
Help your child notice early behaviour signs of strong emotions. For example, ‘You’re starting to hit that keyboard a bit hard. Do you need to stop for a minute and get some fresh air?’
Talk with your child about what you do when you notice the signs that strong emotions are building up. For example, ‘When I start to feel really angry with myself, I focus on something I’m really proud of instead. Would that work for you?’
Work with your child on a list of things they could do when they notice strong emotions building up, like going for a run, listening to loud music on their headphones, or meditating. Try to include plenty of options so your child can choose ones that feel right in different situations.
Remember that talking with teenagers about emotions won’t be as effective when they’re struggling with the strong emotion. You need to step in early or wait until the emotion has passed.

Understanding emotions: children & teens | Raising Children Network

As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out should you need to discuss any ongoing concerns. The staff at Mitcham Primary School are always happy to support our students, families and community.

Kavita Parmar

Inclusion & Engagement Assistant Principal

Harmony Day