ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what an effective emotional environment looks like in the classroom, in the working environment and the school as a whole. Pupils’ perception of staff behaviour is usually very accurate; they are hugely intuitive, and a child’s perception is often their reality. This chapter explores how adults can make children feel and, indeed, how adults can make adults feel. Schools are good at forging social, emotional and ethical skills but are all schools compassionate in the classroom? Do we enable children to achieve to the best of their ability or do we cap potential with negativity and doubt? This chapter discusses why the emotional environment in the classroom is the key focus of the three-stage lesson observation programme, and how significant emotionally healthy classrooms are to general well-being and pupils’ outcomes. This chapter explores what an emotionally healthy classroom and school look like and why creating awe and wonder in the classroom is so important. The chapter challenges staff behaviour and argues that there is no excuse for bad tempers, moods and unconscious bias. Schools and classrooms should be places of mutual respect.
