EBSA School Feelings Lapbook – Item 578

EBSA School feelings lapbook for younger pupils who are struggling to come to school. Suitable for Reception/KS1 and possibly year 3.

Emotionally-based school avoidance describes children or young people who experience challenges in school attendance. They may have negative feelings or anxiety based around going to school. This can lead to non attendance or reduced attendance. The anxiety cycle can continue due to emotional and physical distress caused by attending school.

Pupils aren’t refusing school so the term school refusal is an old one and doesn’t describe the root cause of non attendance. There is usually an emotional, mental health or wellbeing issue to why the pupil isn’t attending school or is reluctant to attend. Pupils don’t have control over these feelings so they aren’t refusing they are scared, anxious, sad, worried and so on.

There are so many reasons why a pupil may not want to attend school and as educators it is good to give pupils a voice. Sometimes a pupil may not know or understand their refusal. This lapbook will help pupils to explore their feelings, voice their worries and communicate their needs.

Included in the EBSA School feelings lapbook:

• Name – pupil writes their name in a colourful way – they could write in bubble writing or decorate it anyway they wish. Why do they like their name? How did they get their name? Do they know of anyone they admire with the same name? Do they have a nickname? (Front cover)
• Picture– either take a photo of the pupil to stick here or ask them to draw themselves. (Front cover)
• Title– Discuss the title (Front cover)
• Safe Place Turtle– This pocket is about FEELING safe. A turtle goes into its shell when it feels threatened. It has a hard shell covering it to help it stay safe. What sort of things help the pupil to feel safe. It might be a person, place, object, smell, anything at all that makes them feel safe and protected. They can write or draw on the inserts.
• Saying Goodbye– This pocket is about helping pupils to say goodbye. It is very difficult to separate from a parent or carer if they don’t want to come into school. This pocket has some ways to say goodbye cards and things to do when you say goodbye. Go through them with the pupil and come up with a plan for separating from their parent or carer. They can come up with their own things too. The cards are just examples.
• My Awesome Qualities– This is a rainbow of qualities. It’s important to help the pupil’s self esteem when they are struggling with coming into school. They need reminding of how awesome they are and all of their good qualities. They can write on each strip of the rainbow any qualities they think they have. You might need to prompt them here.
• Perfect School – Pupils can discuss what they like and don’t like about school. There are some prompts for pupils to sort if they want to or they can just write or draw their own. You could do a combination of both.
• Who can I talk to?– This is a flower where they can write or draw 5 people who they trust and can talk to if their feelings get too big.
• School Worries–This pocket is about worries at school. They can write or draw their worry, look at body feelings and scale the worry using the visual representation of the big monster and small monster
• Coping Strategies– This is a wheel where you can help the pupil with some coping strategies when their feelings get too big. (Back cover)