Research School Network: Improving social and emotional learning in schools: a closer look at the EYFS How can the key person approach support young children’s social and emotional learning?

11-minute view: Early years researcher and author Peter Elfer discusses the key person approach with Julian Grenier from the East London Research School.

The EEF’s guidance report, Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools, clearly maps out the structure which needs to underpin an effective approach to SEL. 

It also suggests the sort of progress which we might expect to see as a child moves from the EYFS into Key Stages 1 and 2.

But, how should we go about helping very young children in the early years to learn about their feelings?

In the early years, it’s important for children to experience difficult feelings like sadness, anxiety, anger and loss in a safe environment.

A safe space is one where those feelings won’t be ignored, or rejected by adults saying things like ​‘come on now, don’t be silly’ or ​‘you’re too big to cry’.

Instead, the adults need to know each child very well as an individual: what makes them tick, and what presses their buttons. Adults must be sympathetic, but also positive about the child’s capacity to get through difficult times. It doesn’t help if the adult and child sink together emotionally.

Likewise, children in their early years need environments that stimulate and excite them. They need to bounce with joy on their best days, as they come in and see their friends and trusted adults for playing and learning together.

It is important that adults are calm, warm and responsive. Research suggests that this is particularly crucial for any child with high levels of negative emotion, notably boys from socially disadvantaged backgrounds.

Sensible routines are also vital. Children need to be able to predict the rhythms of their day, and this gives them a sense of order and comfort.

These themes are summed up neatly in the literature review which informed the Early Years Foundation Stage:

So how can school leaders create these conditions in their nursery and reception classes?Perhaps the most influential response to that question has been the proposal that every child in the early years should have a ​‘key person’. The key person:

• is a named member of staff who has more contact than others with the child;
• is someone to build a relationship with the child and their parents;
• helps the child become familiar with the provision;
• meets the child’s individual needs and care needs (for example, dressing, toileting,etc.); responds sensitively to the child’s feelings, ideas and behaviour;
• is the person who acts as a point of contact with parents.
  

Grenier et al, 2008, p.49

Research suggests that helping children to cope with their emotions is one of the most important benefits of early education. For example, the EYFS Literature Review comments that helping children to ​‘face’ their emotional difficulties and problems is beneficial. It helps children to develop their skills in managing and regulating their emotions. The review quotes the suggestions of Blair et al (2004) for:

However, there are many difficulties associated with this approach in general, and specifically the key person approach. One of those difficulties is helping the adults to have a space to think about and respond to the many, often powerful emotional states they encounter hour-by-hour in their work with young children. The EYFS requires that all early years staff should receive regular ​‘supervision’. Elfer et al (2018) have reinterpreted this as a need for a time and safe space for ​‘Work Discussion’. Their research suggests that this approach is supportive of staff, and this in turn benefits the children. They suggest that the children with the greatest difficulties and at the earliest stages of their learning and development benefit the most from this approach.

Watch Peter Elfer discussing Work Discussion with Julian Grenier from the East London Research School here (8‑minute view).

Alongside this approach, which focuses on responsive care, there is also a role for explicitly teaching social and emotional skills to young children. Children in the nursery and reception years generally move from being reliant on others to help them to regulate their emotions, to being able to self-regulate emotionally. However, as the EYFS Literature Review explains:

So, much of children’s learning about social and emotional development in the early years is through ​‘being’. It’s about having their emotions recognised, understood, and acted on.

It’s about adults helping children to understand and ​‘face’ their feelings, in everyday contexts like a tussle over some toys or a falling out between friends.

It’s about adults being positive and encouraging, and believing that every child ​‘can do it’.

But, the EEF Guidance Report on Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools also makes it clear that explicit teaching has a role to play. Is that also true in the early years?

Our work in this area at Sheringham Nursery School and Children’s Centre, based on research from psychology and speech and language therapy, suggests that the answer to that question is ​‘yes’. But there is still a lot more to find out.

Some children with special educational needs have high levels of negative emotion and/​or difficulties in managing their feelings. In fact, this can be true of a whole range of children. Simple, visual tools which give symbols and words to those emotions can be very helpful.

Our work in this area at Sheringham Nursery School and Children’s Centre, based on research from psychology and speech and language therapy, suggests that the answer to that question is ​‘yes’. But there is still a lot more to find out.

Some children with special educational needs have high levels of negative emotion and/​or difficulties in managing their feelings. In fact, this can be true of a whole range of children. Simple, visual tools which give symbols and words to those emotions can be very helpful.