Ailie Davie, Principal Teacher at East Park School in Glasgow, discusses the use of the Emotion Works emotional literacy programme for autistic pupils of different ages and abilities. The positive outcomes achieved through the programme demonstrate how this approach has benefitted pupils, staff and families.   

At East Park School, we understand that our pupils need to regulate their emotions to help them to have a successful day in school. We also know that staff who are emotionally intelligent will be more resilient to the challenges they often face during their working day. 

To support our pupils and staff to better understand their emotions, we started using an emotional literacy programme, Emotion Works, with the hope that it would lead to more emotionally regulated pupils and an empathetic, resilient staff team. 

What we did:

Emotion Works has been developed and piloted over a 15-year period by teachers, early years practitioners and classroom support staff. It is an educational programme that uses symbols and a highly visual framework to teach children how emotions work. 

Different aspects of emotion, including triggers for that emotion, and behaviours and bodily sensations linked to that emotion, are placed in a different coloured cog. These cogs all link together to demonstrate how they impact each other. The result is a practical and individualised suite of teaching resources for anyone involved in emotional education in schools, nurseries, and additional support services.

After the Principal Teachers undertook initial training with Emotion Works, we rolled out training to the wider school team. Principal Teachers taught Emotion Works lessons across the school to model best practice, build staff confidence, and introduce the resources to pupils. 

Emotion Works is an attractive learning resource to us as it is visual and uses Boardmaker symbols, which our pupils are used to working with. Lessons are inventive and creative, using multi-sensory resources such as puppets, music, and things to smell, taste and touch.

We also decided to use the Emotion Works Talking Tool as our debrief tool, which staff can use following a difficult incident of distressed behaviour. Using this in our debriefs supports the school team, helping to improve their wellbeing. It also allows us to try and understand the root cause of the pupil’s behaviour, often found when examining influences using Emotion Works’ 7-cog model. 

Apart from these general, whole school steps, the work that has been done for pupils is very bespoke. Individual lesson plans are created for pupils, supporting them to understand the specific regulation strategies that work for them. Literacy work has taken place for pupils who are able to read, to generalise their knowledge and understanding. 

For many pupils working at an earlier level, labelling and validating emotions has been a focus. We have broken down emotions to their most simple level of feeling good or not good, liking and disliking, and used sensory experiences to practice and consolidate pupils’ understanding and how they communicate it. Using the language and visual tools of Emotion Works has given our teaching staff the confidence to build a curriculum around health and wellbeing and really strengthen our nurturing culture and ethos. 

Conclusion:  

The impact of the Emotion Works programme on our school has been very positive. Staff have reported that the lessons are engaging and meaningful, while pupil engagement in the lessons is high. A parent forum held to share information about the programme was also met with enthusiasm from families and carers. 

Due to unavoidable external factors, we have recently experienced an increase in staff turnover. This has resulted in some staff who are unfamiliar with the Emotion Works approach. We plan to use the Emotion Works online training to upskill those staff. 

A more difficult problem to overcome is that some of our pupils find it hard to think about and discuss emotions that do not feel good, such as anger, without it triggering that emotion. For those pupils, we are working with their multi-agency teams to find ways to overcome this challenge.

Future plans include working with teams and families to develop appropriate debrief tools for our pupils. This would sit hand in hand with our Positive Behaviour Support meetings and add a further layer of support for our pupils.