Zones of Regulation - Positive Mental Health and Wellbeing
At Corpus Christi Primary School, we recognise the importance of promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing to our pupils and their families. We aim to create an open culture around the discussion of mental health and wellbeing and to empower our children to 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 a bank of strategies to help regulate their emotions and improve their wellbeing.
The Zones of Regulation includes a range of 'tools' to help your child develop skills in the area of self-regulation. 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 (tools) to cope and manage their emotions based on which colour zone they are 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.
There is progression across the curriculum with children in Early Years learning to identify different emotions, to children in Upper Key Stage 2 discussing how our behaviour can impact upon the feelings of those around us.