St Mary's Catholic Primary School
In Jesus' footsteps we learn, love and grow together to be the best that we can be!
Zones of Regulation
'Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.'
- Charles Sindoll
At St. Mary's we teach our children about the Zones of Regulation to help children manage difficult emotions. This is know as 'self-regulation'.
Self-regulation can also be known as self-control, impulse management and self-management. Self-regulation is best described as the best state of alertness for a situation. For, example, when your child takes part in a sports game, they would need to have a higher state of alertness than when they were reading.
At times we all find it hard to manage strong feelings such as worry, fear or tiredness, and this stops us from getting on with our day. When children feel like this they find it hard to concentrate and to learn. The Zones of Regulation teach children strategies to help them cope with these feelings so they can get back to feeling calm and ready to learn. We call these coping strategies 'self-regulation'.
What are the different zones?
At St. Mary's we teach children in all classes good coping and regulation strategies so they can help themselves when they experience anxiety and stress. In the classroom, sometimes children panic when they are faced with a tricky learning challenge or are dealing with an issue outside of school that can affect them in school. By teaching them how to cope with these feelings we can support them in coping better with these feelings, now and in the future, and build a better resilience and mental and physical well-being.
Every classroom has a 'Cwtch Corner' which children help their teacher to build. This is a warm, inviting, stress-free area of the classroom that they can go to at anytime if they feel anxiety or stress. In this area there are resources and reminders of the zones and strategies they can use to help them feel better and get back into the 'green zone' ready for learning.
We teach children that everyone experiences all of the zones. The red and yellow zones are not bad or naughty zones and some zones are helpful, for example, the blue zone is useful for when we want to sleep.
