Social Emotional Competence in
Early Childhood Education

An online course from The Education Hub

This is the personal workbook of:

Here are the notes and reflections you did in part one of the course.

Before we get into our content about social and emotional competence. Think about what it means to you.

What is your current understanding of social and emotional competence?

Notes and reflections from What is social and emotional competence?

Write down the different facets of social and emotional competence, and how these are defined: Here is space for any other notes you would like to take: What differences do you note in the social and emotional competencies of children in your setting? What do you notice about children who have strong social and emotional competencies? What kinds of things do you see them do and say, and how does this support their engagement in your setting? Are there children that are experiencing difficulties in their social and emotional development? What impact does this have for them and their experiences in your early childhood setting?

Notes from The importance of social emotional competence for children’s development

What skills does Peter particularly emphasises as important to future learning and future success? Note down your answer here and then read below to confirm.

Relate learning to practice

As we have seen in this part, social and emotional skills, as well as executive function or self-management skills, are essential to daily functioning and are the foundation on which many other skills and competencies are built.

Think about your day today or yesterday, and try to make a list of the tasks, activities, and interactions you encountered that required you to draw on social, emotional, and executive function skills. Were there people that you had to work with, for example, that required you to draw on your skills? Did you experience emotions in relation to any of these tasks and did you have to manage these appropriately? Did you have to focus, hold information in mind and plan how best to achieve complex tasks? You might also think about whether managing these social, emotional, and management tasks was always easy, and whether there were times when it was more difficult for you. What made these tasks more difficult? For example, you might find it more difficult to regulate emotions when you are tired or hungry. What supports and strategies did you draw on to help you?

Here are the notes and reflections you did in part two of the course.

Notes and reflections from Creating a positive social and emotional climate

Key ideas from "Creating a positive social and emotional climate". How positive is your attitude to the children in your setting? Do you find it easy to offer children affection, and positive encouragement? Or are you naturally more reserved about showing affection and positive feelings? How calm are you during routines and play? How easy is it for you to stay calm and positive in difficult situations, such as conflict situations? What do you think impacts on your ability to be calm, positive, and affectionate on a daily basis, and how might you mitigate some of these factors?

Relate learning to practice

Have a look at pages 102-3 of He māpuna te tamaiti | Te Whāriki Online, and read through the sections on ‘Creating a supportive environment’. You will see several statements listed by the themes below .You’ll see that there is space to evaluate your practice as ‘emerging’, ‘partly in place’, and ‘embedded’ for each section. Note that before you can make an overall judgement for each section, is probably helpful to use a highlighter (or several highlighters) to indicate which parts of each indicator are emerging, partly in place, and embedded, as it is unlikely that you will have consistent scores for each part of each section. You may wish to make notes under the themes in the space below, with your evaluation.

Establishing a positive climate: Constructing values: Developing and promoting expectations: Establishing consistent routines: Creating a safe and inclusive space:

Next think about how you might collect evidence to make judgements in relation to these statements. You might choose to intentionally observe practice over a morning or afternoon, looking for evidence of the practices listed. You might choose to hand out copies of the tools to different people in your setting – including leaders and managers, fellow teachers, teachers in other teams, and parents – and collect and collate their subjective impressions. Their experience of your setting is crucial information!

Take notes here: When you’ve collected some data and evaluated your progress against each of the indicators, use your results to determine which area of creating a positive social and emotional climate you would like to work on and improve.

Then make some plans of actions you will take to improve practice. For example, if you determine that the routines you use in your setting are not as consistent as they might be, and that you would like to focus in particular on co-constructing routines for particular activities.

Make a list of the action steps you need to take to achieve this.

Here are the notes and reflections you did in part three of the course.

Reflections on Supporting emotional learning in early childhood education

The following is a list of ways to teach emotional regulation skills. Check all the ones that you do regularly in your practice: Communicate acceptance of emotions. Modelling and role-playing ways in which you regulate your own thinking, attention, emotions and behaviours in front of children. Encourage children to communicate their need for help when feelings become overwhelming. Extending sociodramatic play to give children opportunities to set and follow rules for play and to practise self-regulation in processing and regulating emotions to suit the play. Co-regulate infants’ and toddlers’ distress. Give physical comfort. Intentionally teaching strategies that can support children to manage their emotions more appropriately. Preparing children for upcoming events that are likely to create stress for the child or trigger strong emotional responses. Developing spaces, activities and resources for calming down. Discuss strategies for managing emotions with the children. Then have a look at what is left and consider how your might incorporate them into your practice.

Self-awareness of your own emotional experience, needs, and preferences can help you to build stronger relationships with all children and better support their emerging social and emotional skills. Your own emotional awareness and recognition of your beliefs about emotional expression are really important in the creation of positive emotional climates. Use the following questions to reflect on your beliefs and attitudes to emotional expression, and your strategies for emotional regulation.

How was emotion managed in your family? How free were you to express feelings and how were you supported to express emotions? What kinds of role models did you have in terms of emotional expression? What triggers more intense emotions for you? What kinds of situations are likely to generate strong feelings? What strategies might you use to self-regulate in the context of your teaching work?

Relate learning to practice

This time we want you to devise ways to assess the emotion words that teachers and children use and understand. You might undertake some focused observations, or structure opportunities for children and teachers to generate emotion words (identifying emotions in a book or drawing different emotional expressions, for example).

What did you do?

When you have a list of the emotion words that you have heard used, choose a set of emotion words that you’d like to teach and reinforce, to extend children’s existing knowledge.

Which set of emotion words will you use?

Create some simple resources (images or simply a list of key vocabulary) to display in your setting to prompt teachers to use the extended emotion vocabulary.

You may wish to upload a copy/picture of your resources here:

Uploaded File: Remove

Upload a FilePermitted file formats: pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, csv, txt, ppt, pptx, mp3, mp4, zip.

Here are the notes and reflections you did in part four of the course

Reflections on Scaffolding social skills in early childhood

Spend some time reflecting on your strengths, challenges, and preferences in regard to social interactions.

For example, are you introverted or extroverted? Are you more comfortable in smaller or larger groups? What kinds of social interactions do you enjoy most? Which aspects of social interactions do you find difficult? Does the context in which the interaction takes place make a difference? You may like to think about whether there is a cultural dimension to your preferences.

Then try to relate this to your teaching practices.

Which social situations and interactions do you find more challenging to support among the children you work with? Is there a relationship here to your own preferred style for social interaction and emotional expression?

Reflections on social skills and learning about conflict

What are your beliefs about intervening in conflict situations, and under what circumstances? What kinds of feelings do difficult situations (such as hurting/biting, conflict, unkind words, bullying) raise for you? How can this awareness help you to manage these situations? Might there be issues of bias and discrimination in children’s interactions that require some adult intervention for social justice?

Notes on how to handle conflict between children

Think of your current practice and check which of the suggestions from the article you already do. Then have a look at what is left and consider how your might incorporate them into your practice.

Apply learning to practice

To inquire into social conflicts at your early childhood setting set yourself up with an event-sampling observation sheet – this simply means being prepared with some ideas of what you want to observe and what you want to record about a conflict situation.

For example, you might decide you want to record:

• the time and location of the conflict (especially if you think conflicts are more common at a certain time or in a particular place)
• children’s names
• the problem around which the conflict arose
• children’s strategies or attempts to solve the problem (here you might record dialogue and actions)
• teachers’ actions and responses

Event sampling means that, with this preparation in place, you engage in observation whenever a conflict event occurs. Collect as many conflict observations as you can in a week. Remember that a conflict situation may not necessarily involve loud words and physical aggression, and children may already be using strategies to mitigate potential conflicts.

You might like to upload your data here:

Uploaded File: Remove

Upload a FilePermitted file formats: pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, csv, txt, ppt, pptx, mp3, mp4, zip.

Next, analyse the data you have collected. What are common causes of conflict to arise in your setting? What strategies are children using to attempt to resolve conflict? Are these strategies successful? What skills might need to be taught, and how might you plan to teach and reinforce this skill? If other teachers were present, you might consider teachers’ responses to the conflict event, and the impact of these responses.

What are common causes of conflict to arise in your setting? What strategies are children using to attempt to resolve conflict? Are these strategies successful? What skills might need to be taught, and how might you plan to teach and reinforce this skill? If other teachers were present, you might consider teachers’ responses to the conflict event, and the impact of these responses.

Here are the notes and reflections you did in part five of the course

Notes from What is executive function?

How do the different processes that make up executive function support children with learning, and with social and emotional competence?

Notes from The importance of self-regulation

Think back to the games described in the reading (Red Light, Purple Light, and the Sleeping Game) and think about how you might frame and present these games to children.

How would you highlight the executive function skills being practised in the game (cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibitory control)? In what ways could you link these skills to everyday situations?

Notes and reflections from Supporting children’s self-management skills

What links do you see between children with strong self-managing behaviours and a positive social and emotional climate as described in Part 2?

Relate learning to practice

Use whichever of the games below are relevant to your centre to inquire into children’s executive function skills (inhibition/impulse control, working memory and cognitive flexibility) in your setting.

Inhibition/impulse control:

Infants: How well do children inhibit their anticipatory reactions at the end of a rhyme like Round and round the garden? Toddlers: How well can toddlers inhibit alternative actions in order to play a game like Follow the leader in which they have to copy the leader’s actions? Young children: How well can children manage excitement and stay calm in a game of Grandma’s Footsteps or Sleeping Lions? Or how well can children respond to a game in which they have to move at different speeds according to the name of the animal called out?

Working memory:

Infants: How well can children hold in mind the location of a toy that they watch you hide? Do they know where to look for it? Toddlers: How well do toddlers remember what action to complete according to different cues in games like Ring-a-ring-a-rosy, Jack in the box, or Sleeping bunnies? Young children: How well can children remember additive songs in which additional parts are added as the song grows? Or how well can they hold clapping patterns in mind and repeat them back to you?

Cognitive flexibility:

Toddlers and young children: How well can children adjust to changing rules for sorting a group of objects? For example, after they sort a set of counters by size, can they then sort the same set by colour? Or how well can they adjust their behaviour when you change the rules in a game, such as the behaviours to match with a specific cue?

Executive function:

After investigating children’s strengths and needs in relation to executive function, choose which area of executive function you would like to strengthen. Plan two additional games or activities to practise with children and build into your daily routines. You might find the resource guides on games and activities to strengthen executive function in infants and toddlers, and in children aged 3 – 5, in the Further Reading section, helpful here.

You might like to upload your game or activity here:

Uploaded File: Remove

Upload a FilePermitted file formats: pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, csv, txt, ppt, pptx, mp3, mp4, zip.

Here are the notes and reflections you did in part six of the course

Notes and reflections from Taking an inclusive and culturally responsive approach to working with neurodiverse children

How well do you think neurodiversity is understood, accepted, and valued in your setting? What makes you give your previous answer? What steps have you taken (or might you take) to introduce children to the concept of neurodiversity in a positive and strengths-based manner? What modifications have you (or can you) make to environments and routines in order to support neurodivergent children?

Relate your learning to practice

To evaluate this child’s experience of the setting, you might observe them at different times, perhaps as they enter the setting and settle down to play, or at a key transition or group time.

Try to observe through the child’s eyes – what messages are they getting? What impact might those messages be having on their sense of self-worth and belonging?

Once you have gathered this data, consider what adjustments you might make to your environment, your expectations, or your practice to improve the social emotional climate for this child and other neurodivergent children.

Jot down your observations here or upload a file below.

Uploaded File: Remove

Upload a FilePermitted file formats: pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, csv, txt, ppt, pptx, mp3, mp4, zip.

Here are the notes and reflections you did in part seven of the course

Notes and reflection from Supporting children with challenging behaviour

Key points from Supporting children with challenging behaviour. What kinds of challenging behaviours, both externalising and internalising, do you experience in your setting? What do you think might be the reasons behind these challenging behaviours? Can you see how paying careful attention to providing the first two tiers of support might help prevent these challenging behaviours?

Notes and reflections from responding to challenging behaviours

Key points from the video: What kinds of feelings does the challenging behaviour of children generate in you? Does this vary depending on the particular child, or children of different ages or genders? Why do you think you have this response to challenging behaviours? What might you do to minimise your own emotional reaction to children’s challenging behaviours?

Notes and reflections on Targeted individualised support for specific challenging behaviours

Key points from Targeted individualised support for specific challenging behaviours. What is the third level of support that is recommended for supporting challenging behaviours in early childhood settings? How do these strategies and approaches align with the advice from Alexandra for understanding and responding to children’s challenging behaviours? How might you put in place systematic supports for children with the greatest needs?

Relate learning to practice

Using the ideas from the reading for this part, observe a child with challenging behaviour, and try to determine the function of the behaviour, as well as the contexts or environmental causes of the behaviour.

You can do this in different ways. You can focus on an individual child, or on the children as a group (for the latter you would be examining routines and activities to see where challenging behaviour, from any child, occurs). Write down your preferred approach here: You might choose to focus on externalising behaviours, or internalising behaviours. Write down your focus here: You may decide that it is important to create a log of incidences of challenging behaviour to see when they are commonly occurring. Or, knowing that challenging behaviour often occurs as children transition to a mealtime, you might carry out a detailed observation of this time to see if you can work out what the triggers for challenging behaviour might be, or the purposes those behaviours serve for the child/children. Write down your approach here: After your observation, try to develop some hunches about triggers, functions, and consequences of challenging behaviour, and determine your next steps. What further information do you need to confirm your hunches? You might like to upload your plan here:

Uploaded File: Remove

Upload a FilePermitted file formats: pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, csv, txt, ppt, pptx, mp3, mp4, zip.

Here are the notes and reflections you did in part eight of the course

Relate your learning to practice

In Part 2, we asked you to inquire into the social and emotional climate of your setting, using the self-assessment tool from He māpuna te tamaiti. You might like to revisit this work, and the judgements you made about your strengths and weaknesses in regard to creating a positive social and emotional climate for children. 

We then want you to consider the other key components of a programme for social and emotional learning, and assess your strengths and weaknesses in regard to these. You might consider:

Learning about and managing emotions:

How well do you support children to learn to recognise, understand, and express emotions in themselves and others? In how many different ways do you teach emotion knowledge? How are children supported with emotional regulation? How successful is this support? Do all children feel cared for, by teachers and by peers? Are difficulties with behaviour understood and accepted without a sense of shame for any one child?

Social skills:

How well do you support children to learn different social skills for getting on with others in a variety of contexts? In how many different ways do you teach social skills? How are children supported through conflict? How successful is this support?

Executive function skills:

How often, and in what ways, do you provide opportunities for children to practise executive function skills? How do you help children to connect executive function games and play to real life contexts for executive function skills?

Neurodivergence:

What sort of understandings do you and your team hold around the strengths and difficulties of neurodivergent children in regard to social and emotional competence? What additional support are you providing?

Challenging behaviour:

How well do you and your team understand the reasons and functions of challenging behaviour for individual children? What support have you put in place?

Next steps:

What does this assessment highlight for you, in terms of areas where you might need to engage in further work and improvement? How might you tackle this? Could this perhaps be a topic for improvement through further investigation and inquiry?