ELSA - Emotional Literacy Support Assistant

What is ELSA?

An ELSA in a school is an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant. There is a recognised ELSA training course aimed specifically at Teaching Assistants in schools. Examples of things covered on the course are social skills, emotions, bereavement, social stories and therapeutic stories, anger management, self-esteem, counselling skills such as solution focus and friendship.

Please have a look at these resources on wellbeing. If you could take some time to do the wellbeing questionnaire with your child, and email the results to me lisa.eicke@thepark.surrey.sch.uk - My hope is that this will help our students understand their own feelings of how they have felt during the coronavirus lockdown, open up conversations at home of anything they might be struggling with, and also help me to support them best when they return to school. 

 Once your child is back at school, we will follow up with a further questionnaire, which I have added to the site should you wish to discuss it at home before their return. They will do these with their tutors over the first few days of term in September. 

I have a further 2 activities that you may like to look at over the summer holidays. These are fun based activities, not home learning, but just another way to be mindful about how our students are feeling after so many difficult and confusing changes since covid-19. These are nice activities which could be fun to involve other siblings/parents/carers in and may help to fill some time whilst things slowly return to a new kind of normal. 

 As the school ELSA, I am here to support any students who are struggling with any emotional issues, and welcome you to let me know if you feel there is anything in particular I can do to support your child on their return. 

Meanwhile, I hope you all stay safe and well, and I look forward to seeing everyone soon, 

Lisa Lealman
Park School ELSA