It is vital that we understand how best to support children as they grow up by helping them in the early years of their education and encouraging them to achieve higher long-term educational goals. It is essential too that we pay attention to the role of emotions in learning, and to realise how emotions are linked to behaviours that in turn can either promote or inhibit learning.

When children’s thought processes develop normally, they learn to recognise and regulate the emotion (affect) that lies behind action, and will be more able to control their actions or behaviours.

English's work in Transactional Analysis provides useful evidence of how children’s ability to differentiate between inner awareness, the expression of feelings, and actions develops as they grow up. Children need to be supported as they experience and demonstrate emotional states; they need to be taught to recognize and name emotions, to extend their emotional vocabulary, to learn to think about emotions, and to think while experiencing emotions. If young people are to change their behaviour in lasting ways, they need to be taught how to do so. Thrive™ can help encourage their insights and understanding - imposing simple discipline is not enough.

The development of this cognitive function happens when children recognise and share their emotional states (affect attunement). This is of particular interest when considering:

Access to Learning for All

The identification of learning needs, especially for children who are vulnerable, underachieving, or at risk.
Strategies for working with young people whose behaviour interrupts their own learning, or that of others.

The relationship between teacher and child is an under-recognised and under-used resource but by using Thrive™, this relationship is enhanced and will bear fruit.

Developmental Models

The Thrive™ programme uses two models of child development, which offer valuable insights into emotional and social development. These contemporary and optimistic models, based on current research and established theory, are used to inform our approach.

The first model was developed by Daniel Stern, Beatrice Beebe and others, and is described in 'The Interpersonal World of the Infant' (1985). It demonstrates that infants first develop their sense of themselves in relation to other key people. They need to build relationships with other people in order to maintain and develop their sense of self. Obviously, these key early relationships can have a positive effect on the relationship with the child’s teacher. Thrive™ encourages a positive relationship between teacher and child, which will have a positive impact on the child’s future development and education.

The second child development model arises out of the work of Illsley-Clarke and Dawson. Illsley-Clarke received the Berne Award for her work in the field of parenting in 1998. Extending the earlier work of Levin, they suggest a model of 'building blocks of experience' in which young people and adults need to complete their ‘building’ in order to fulfil themselves and their potential.

The stages of children’s development are sequential, but developmental tasks can be tackled at any stage of growing up. In successfully experiencing and completing tasks, our sense of safety and uniqueness, our creativity, and our problem-solving and relationship-making skills become more secure. Needs and tasks that have not been addressed satisfactorily - or those that become more urgent because our circumstances change, for instance through bereavement or redundancy - may recur throughout our lives. Thus for a child, the exciting reality is that the interrupted, missed or newly-needed learning can happen at any time, given the right circumstances - or the right tool for the job - such as Thrive™.

The Six Building Blocks or Developmental Strands

Thrive™ uses a developmental framework to clarify the connections between emotional and social development, behaviour and learning. Child development can be depicted as six building blocks of experience, each with accompanying tasks and opportunities. These translate into six fundamental aspects of Learning for Emotional and Social Development:

Learning to be
Learning to do
Learning to think
Learning to be powerful and to have an identity (Power and Identity)
Learning to be skilful and have structure  (Skills and Structure)
Learning to be separate and secure in your sexual identity (Separation and Sexuality)

These can be thought of as six areas of competence. Each area of competence has related tasks and desirable experiences to make the most of learning. The diagram above makes ‘learning to be’ or 'Being' the foundation on which other experiences are built; this is the model that is used throughout the programme.

Sequential emotional development

As the child grows the developmental strands come 'on-line' sequentially - however, once they are in place, they remain available and open to growth throughout life. This means that our developmental tasks can be addressed at any point in our lives: we are truly life-long learners when it comes to brain and emotional and social development.

Recycling the tasks of emotional learning

The Thrive approach talks of this as 'recycling': we recycle our developmental needs as they arise and until they are met. Our changing circumstances throughout our lives also present us both with challenges to be addressed and opportunities to learn or relearn from our experiences. Until we are supported to understand and act in ways that are different from our familiar, predictable responses, we are likely to keep meeting similar challenges with the behaviours we have used before - even if they were not successful last time.

Developmental strands and learning needs.

Each building block is linked to three learning needs. You can recognise the most urgent learning need by observing the young person's behaviour. Thrive™ then recommends specific one-to-one responses and various teaching strategies, and explores the implications for the school as a whole.

When using the Assessment Tool, you can select 'School Actions' (on the Action Plan page), and these interventions can be included in Individual Education Plans (IEPs) as part of the SEN Code of Practice staged assessment procedures, or within Pastoral Support Programmes (PSPs) for reducing exclusions or making provision for vulnerable students. Students who need additional or wider-ranging help can be supported through the local services, community organisations and specialist agencies included in 'School Action Plus' (also on the Action Plan page of the Assessment tool).