Suffolk County Council (SCC), as part of their Delivering Better Value (DBV) Programme, are developing a Free Emotion Coaching training package for Lead Inclusion/Pastoral Leads in KS3/4 and are looking for up to 20 Secondary schools and Alternative Providers to pilot the programme in the Autumn term.

What is Emotion Coaching?

Emotion Coaching is a useful tool or approach in supporting young people’s behaviour and mental and emotional health, and well-being. It is whole-school approach, which focuses on upskilling and coaching the adults. Evidence suggests young people exposed to adults using an emotion coaching approach demonstrate: improved pupils’ ability to regulate their feelings, and had positive effect on teacher-pupil relationships contributing to pupils better than expected academic progress. The Emotion Coaching Programme will be designed and lead by experts from our Educational Psychology and Therapeutic Service. Emotion Coaching can complement and enhance other emotional wellbeing approaches that schools may already have in place i.e. Thrive, Trauma Perceptive Practice.

What will be involved?

The Emotion Coaching Programme for KS3/4 will require a Senior Leader and a member of your Inclusion/Pastoral/SENDCo team to attend an in-person training session of 90 minutes in early September at a central Suffolk location. The expectation is that these ‘Emotion Coaching Leads’ will then deliver this training to all school staff before October half term, by whichever mechanism works best for your staff/setting. The remaining programme will then be delivered to the two Emotion Coaching Leads via 6 weekly online sessions of 30 minutes from November to December 2024. This information will also need to be cascaded weekly to all school staff. Participating Emotion Coach Leads must commit to attend all sessions. All training, resources and support will be included free of charge. Schools will be supported to measure the impact of the training over the academic year through bespoke questionnaires to staff. 

If your school might be interested in being part of this Autumn pilot, please email [email protected] with the subject line: EMOTION COACHING PILOT. The deadline to be considered is: noon Friday 12 July. Places will be filled on a first come, first served basis.