| 'Zippy's
Friends' to be launched in Southampton.
Zippy's
Friends is to be launched in a fifth country,
following an agreement between Partnership
for Children and Southampton Local Education
Authority in southern England.
The programme, which
teaches young children how to cope with
difficulties, will be piloted in some
Southampton primary schools from September.
Its implementation and its effects on
children will be independently evaluated.
Principal Educational
Psychologist Elizabeth Herrick explained
that Emotional Literacy is an established
priority within Southampton's Strategic
Education Plan.
'Many of us in education
believe in the importance of working with
the whole child in order to effect good
learning outcomes,' she said. 'We intuitively
know that we learn better when we feel
better, and current research is now providing
us with convincing evidence to support
this belief.'
'When first reading
the materials for Zippy's Friends, we
were impressed by the strong evaluative
evidence for success, the accessibility
of the training programme for schools
and the delightful resources available
for the children. On meeting Partnership
for Children, we felt immediately in tune
with the approach, impressed by the professional
approach and infected by the enthusiasm
and commitment. We felt we could resist
no longer! So now it's look out children
- here comes Zippy!'
Zippy's Friends was
originally developed in Denmark and Lithuania
and is still running in both countries.
It has grown very rapidly in Lithuania,
with more than 10,000 children expected
to take part this year. The programme
is to be launched in India in August 2003
and in Brazil in March 2004.
Programme Manager Caroline
Egar welcomed the agreement to start it
in England.
'Southampton is acknowledged
among local education authorities as being
the leader in emotional literacy, and
so it's particularly pleasing that it
will be our first English partner. Teacher
training sessions will take place in late
September and the programme should be
in classrooms soon after that,' she said.
'We're having discussions
with a number of other English authorities
as well, and we hope that a successful
pilot in Southampton will convince many
others to use Zippy's Friends.'
This
article first appeared on the Partnership
for Children website: www.partnershipforchildren.org.uk
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