At Buryfields we are lucky to have two amazing, trained ELSAs - Mrs Eaton-Price and Mrs Bradley.  An ELSA is an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant – a teaching assistant whose role is to support children and young people in school to understand and regulate their own emotions whilst also respecting the feelings of those around them. ELSAs receive training from Educational Psychologists around the areas of: emotional awareness, self-esteem, anger management, social and friendship skills, social communication difficulties, loss, bereavement and family break-up.  In our school, Mrs Eaton-Price and Mrs Bradley work with individuals who we feel would benefit from some 1:1 time; this might be to help them understand their emotions around a current issue, such as a bereavement, change in family circumstance or friendship issues, or it might be to help them learn how to manage their emotions if there are ongoing issues or problems. 

Both Mrs Bradley and Mrs Eaton-Price work with the children for 6-12 weeks; this is done in an entirely age-appropriate way, allowing the children to lead the sessions, to talk if they want to or just play a game.  We are not trying to get ‘in their heads’ or ‘fix’ problems, rather these are meant to be fun and relaxed sessions when we want to encourage them to recognise that their feelings are important and valid and that sometimes talking can help.

The ELSAs liaise with the class teachers to discuss progress.  They also attend an ELSA support group to talk through current cases and to share good practice – this is done in an entirely confidential way and no names are shared.  The ELSAs will also speak with the headteacher and/or our educational psychologist if there are concerns. On completion of the 6 or so sessions, the class teacher will normally verbally feed back to parents about the progress that has been made and will discuss whether more sessions would be of use.

If you think your child would benefit from working with one of our ELSAs, please speak with your child’s class teacher directly. More information about the ELSA programme can be found here.

2024 ELSA Booklist

[pdf 496KB]