A new trial, launched today by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), will find out if training early years staff to conduct responsive relationships with young children – helping them to build their understanding of the different emotions they experience, why they occur, and how they can handle them – can boost early development.
Early years settings across England can register to take part in the trial of Emotion Coaching, developed and delivered by Emotion Coaching UK in collaboration with Norland College.
The programme, which has shown promise in smaller studies, gives early educators online professional development to support them to improve children’s self-regulation skills, and better manage their emotions and behaviour. It supports educators to use a four-step process:
- Recognising the child’s feelings and empathising with them.
- Validating these feelings and labelling them.
- Setting expectations for appropriate behaviour, given the context.
- Problem-solving with the child.
