At Edison Primary School, we recognise the importance of promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing to our students and their families. We aim to create an open culture around the discussion of mental health and wellbeing and to empower our children be able to regulate their emotions. By implementing the Zones of Regulation curriculum we aim to teach our pupils to identify emotions in themselves and others and provide them with bank of strategies to help regulate their emotions and improve their wellbeing.
The Zones of Regulation is a range of activities to help your child develop skills in the area of self-regulation. Self-regulation can go by many names, such as self-control, self-management and impulse control. It is defined as the best state of alertness of both the body and emotions for the specific situation. For example, when your child plays in a football game, it is beneficial to have a higher state of alertness. However, that same state would not be appropriate in the library.
The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum based around the use of four colours to help children self-identify how they’re feeling and categorise it based on colour. The curriculum also helps children better understand their emotions, sensory needs and thinking patterns. The children learn different strategies to cope and manage their emotions based on which colour zone they’re in. Additionally, the Zones of Regulation helps children to recognise their own triggers, learn to read facial expressions, develop problem-solving skills, and become more attuned to how their actions affect other people.
We teach our children how to read their body’s signals, detect triggers, read social context, and consider how their behaviours impact those around them. We teach our children that there are no bad zones to be in and that it is ok to be in any one zone.
Below is a link to a video to help you understand the different zones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOkyKyVFnSs&list=PLNf04ZZuGki-452vF_fzh1KAYPsB8c6jz
Every class has a visual display of the ‘Zones of Regulation’ that is used regulary and referred to during lessons and used as points for discussion. The teachers also use this model to explain how they are feeling and which strategies they can use to help them during challenging times.
