ELSA - Emotional Literacy

At St Joseph's we have four trained ELSAs. They are: Mrs Doherty, Mrs Do, Miss Disley, Mrs Rees and Miss Nicholson.

We endeavour to support our pupils emotional and wellbeing throughout their time at St Joseph's. Some children may require more support at different times for lots of different reasons. 

Our ELSA support can involve individual sessions or group work activities. 

Sessions can focus on different things such as:

Recognising emotions
    Self-esteem
    Social skills
    Friendship skills

   Anger management
    Loss and bereavement

Our pupils thoroughly enjoy the sessions:

“Coming to ELSA makes me feel important.” 

“ELSA has grown my confidence and made my life happy and fun. I have learned that I can share my worries with anyone, teachers, family and friends.”

“I think that ELSA support has helped me with everything that went on like my dad and anxiety. I have strategies to help me for example finger breathing feather blowing.” 

“ELSA is helping me to talk about how I feel and it gives me a safe place to go. Also Mrs Do gives us coping methods to help me and my family.” 

“I really like doing ELSA sessions, because I feel like when I’m around Mrs Do I feel safe and calm. I like doing all the strategies inside and outside of school.” 

“It takes the load of for a while, like when Frodo is dying and Sam takes the ring for a bit.(Lord of the Rings)

It has taught me how to use strategies to calm me down when I’m feeling overloaded.”