Zones of Regulations
The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum that we started to implement across school at the start of September. It is designed to help children recognise and regulate their emotions. All emotions are grouped into zones that are displayed in classrooms. The blue zone includes feelings such as tired, sad, lonely. The green zone includes happy, content, ready to learn, proud. The yellow zone includes excited, confused, worried, nervous. The red zone contains emotions when we lose control such as furious, hysterical, angry. We discuss how everybody feels a range of emotions across all the zones and that none of these emotions are wrong. However, to help us be ready to learn, the green zone is where we aim to be.
As we learn more about the zones the children should be able to say how they are feeling and identify which zone they are in e.g. I am happy, I am in the Green zone. I am confused, I am in the Yellow zone. We also work on recognising emotions in others and how that affects our behaviour.
We then work with the children demonstrating tools that they can use to move between the zones, so how to get back to the green zone from the yellow zone for example. The tools range from breathing strategies, to thinking strategies and sensory strategies. We practise these strategies, find the ones that children like and support them in using them when appropriate. The aim is for the children to then be able to use these strategies independently when they recognise that they need to return to the green zone.
The aim of using Zones of Regulation within school is to give the children tools to recognise how they are feeling and how they can deal with those emotions themselves, although always with our support as much as needed.