Developing Emotional Intelligence in the Primary School

Do you want to promote sociability and positive behaviour in your classroom?

Is having an ‘emotionally intelligent classroom’ one of your teaching goals?

Are you looking for ways to teach the curriculum more ‘creatively’?

Developing Emotional Intelligence in the Primary School is an essential text for supporting children’s emotional preparation for learning in the long term, fostering the development both of self belief and permanent and crucial resilience.

This book allows teachers to review their practice and approach to teaching and to re-assess how they view their pupils. Using practical drama frames that the teacher can develop for themselves, it gives a background and framework to build emotional intelligence in a child and generate a culture of openness to learning in the classroom.

Areas covered include:

• Self-esteem, emotional and social intelligence;
• Independence and self-reliance;
• Creating an emotionally intelligent learning environment;
• Emotional literacy based around core curriculum areas including literacy and history;
• Conflict resolution and anti-bullying strategies;
• Building emotonal resilience in vulnerable children;
• Using and integrating positional drama for Emotional Intelligence.

With a number of practical techniques and activities to be implemented in the classroom, this introduction to emotional intelligence will be of great interest to all primary school teachers looking to further understanding of pupils social and emotional development through learning.

Sue Colverd has worked in educational and theatre settings for thirty years as a director, practitioner, writer and lecturer. She is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of Gloucestershire.

Bernard Hodgkin is currently working for Herefordshire LA within the School Improvement and Inclusion team. He has worked in a wide variety of educational settings over a thirty-five year career as a teacher in schools and further and higher education, including leading Initial Teacher Training programmes.