Children need to feel safe at school to be emotionally ready to learn.
This safety can only be established if we develop strong relationships, built upon mutual respect and trust.
Ultimately, students need to know that teachers and key adults have their wellbeing at heart.
Quick read: Where can teachers find help for mental health?
Quick listen: Understanding the psychology of bad behaviour
Want to know more? Office politics: how to end the blame game in your school
But are we creating environments in our schools that support children’s engagement in their learning? Are we helping them to feel that they belong?
To do this, everyone in the learning community needs to be aware of their emotions and the impact these have on others. The aim is for all to become better at self-regulating their emotions.
One example often given when adults are supervising in difficult situations is the need for the adult to put on their oxygen mask first, before helping the child in putting theirs on.
Behaviour is communication
I believe that behaviour is learned in the same way that English and maths is learned. In the same way that we can accept that children learn maths from misconceptions and that mistakes can be used as learning opportunities, consider the extent to which we show this same attitude when it comes to learning to improve behaviour.
In the same way that a toddler is communicating their emotions through shouting or stamping their feet, to what extent do we see perceived negative behaviour in children as a communication of their emotions?
Negative behaviour, when children may be feeling sad or angry, should be used as a learning opportunity to enable them to improve.
This approach should also be mirrored in adults. I believe that all children and adults have emotional and behavioural needs and can face difficulties with managing emotions.
Is there anyone who doesn’t feel anger at times? And to what extent can our emotions affect us negatively in the workplace?
Consider yourself as a practitioner in terms of the following questions:
• How do you feel about sharing your own feelings and emotions? With adults? With children?
• How do you react to the feelings and emotions of others?
• How does your pupils’ behaviour make you feel?
• How do you self-regulate?
I don’t believe that our interactions in class are ever neutral - we either have a positive effect on children or negative. We either empower them to believe in themselves as learners or we disempower them.
We must enable our children to understand that their emotions and feelings will be discussed and listened to.
Our job is to coach them to improve their behaviour; this is to enable them to self-regulate their emotions and improve in their learning.
By creating an emotionally literate environment, we enable all children and adults to understand, manage and self-regulate their emotions - it is OK to feel angry but we need to know how best to deal with and self-regulate that anger.
By doing this, we can create an environment which maximises the learning opportunities for all.
Kulvarn Atwal is executive headteacher of two large primary schools in the London Borough of Redbridge and author of The Thinking School: developing a dynamic learning community
