Supporting Inclusion and Emotional Regulation in Schools.
Mood Bears in Education gives schools a structured, story-led approach to teaching emotional literacy, regulation and emotional understanding through practical small-group sessions delivered by existing staff.
Designed by specialist advisory teachers, the programme helps children develop the language, understanding and strategies needed to navigate transition, relationships, uncertainty and change, while building more consistent, inclusive classroom cultures across the school.
Aligned with current inclusion priorities, RSHE developments and the Inclusive Mainstream Fund (IMF) focus on early intervention, staff confidence and inclusive practice.
Children are often expected to navigate emotional change without ever being explicitly taught how to understand how their brain and body works.
Schools are increasingly seeing children who:
- struggle with transition and change
- cannot explain what they are feeling
- become dysregulated under stress or uncertainty
- mask anxiety through behaviour, avoidance or humour
- need emotional understanding taught explicitly - not assumed
Our program helps schools:
- teach emotional literacy explicitly
- support transition and belonging
- strengthen staff confidence and consistency
- reduce escalation through shared emotional language
- build inclusive classroom cultures using existing staff and structures
We give every child a language for their emotions - and every school a system to use it.
We produced an embedded practitioner learning model (scripted) so that TAs (teacher pack is coming soon) learn the framework as they deliver it in real time. This guided group work approach gives children the language to understand feelings, reduce escalation and support inclusion. Mood Bears is a practical system for building emotional literacy, regulation and communication in everyday classroom life.
Aligned with New Statutory RSHE Guidance (September 2026)
Covers EYFS - Y6 teaching of:
✔ recognising and naming emotions
✔ understanding how feelings affect behaviour
✔ developing strategies to manage emotions
✔ building emotional vocabulary and communication
Planned within a CASEL aligned spiral curriculum which builds the skills needed term-by-term, year-by-year required for Ofsted's Personal Development judgement.
Written by award winning specialist advisory teachers with decades of experience supporting inclusion to help you meet the new statutory RSHE expectations through emotional literacy and behaviour understanding.
Why focus on emotional literacy?
Schools are increasingly expected to explicitly teach emotional understanding, reduce behaviour escalation, and support inclusion within the classroom.
Statutory RSHE guidance requires children to learn how to recognise, understand and manage their emotions and know how these influence behaviour.
Most schools haven’t been given a practical way to deliver this consistently. Mood Bears in Education bridges that gap.
When a child labels certain emotions with precision e.g. 'sad' to 'jealous' it does two things
1) reduces activity in the amygdala (threat centre)
2) increases activity in the prefrontal cortex (thinking brain).
What you will see:
- Children in your classrooms confidently naming feelings beyond 'happy' and 'sad'.
- Fewer behaviours escalating into incidents.
- Support staff responding consistently
- Children using strategies independently.
- Happier classrooms with more time for learning
Inside a Mood Bears Session
No prior specialist training is needed. The structured 30-minute sessions, scripts and resources are designed to build staff confidence while reducing planning and cognitive load. Each TA-led guided group session follows a clear five-step structure, helping children know what to expect and staff feel confident delivering it.
1. The Story
Inside each Mood Bear’s pocket is a short, relatable story based on real classroom and playground experiences (e.g. being left out, falling out with a friend, feeling overwhelmed).
The story pauses at a key moment — a ‘Paws Pause’ - where children stop to notice exactly what is happening and 'what are the character thoughts?'
2. Emotional Precision
The children use carefully differentiated resources such as feelings fans / word mats / mood dictionaries, to explore a rich emotional vocabulary that gives every feeling its precise name, and uncover the actual words that are sending real message, and find strategies that actually work.
3. Science: Understanding the Brain & Body
A Mood Bear expert arrives and works alongside the children to explore the emotional world of the character. What are the clues? What happened before? What might they be thinking and feeling? The Expert produces a 'report' to explains from a scientific / neuroscience point of view what is exactly happening inside the brain and body of the character. For example, if a child is left out and becomes angry, children learn that anger is a natural response to a social threat. They learn simple brain and body science - such as the role of the amygdala and the body’s stress response (fight/flight) - so they understand why feelings can escalate.
4. The Strategies
Through beautifully crafted activities the Mood Bear Expert teaches the children a strategy to support that emotion or to help embed and more deeply understand the science. They also look at what has happened from different points of view and think about where a thought may have come from and that thoughts can be re-framed or challenged if we consider more context.
5. Become the Expert
Children reflect on what they’ve learned and how they can apply it back in class - becoming 'experts' in emotions themselves and are given the challenge after each session to 'explain what they learned' to a peer or a parent. This leads to them being far more likely to use them 'in the moment' as they are prompted by staff to solve problems with their thinking brain.
Backed by all five Dragons' Den investors - Peter Jones called Mood Bears "something that could have real, consequential, positive impact". That's the standard we hold ourselves to in every school we work with.
Hear about impact of Mood Bears in real classrooms today
Eight 'experts at hand'...
Each of the eight Mood Bears is an expert in their own emotion. Together they give children and staff a memorable way to recognise what might be happening inside their brain and body and gives them the language to say so precisely. They learn together that feelings are not problems. Far from it, they are messages. And every message has something very important to say.
Let's consider Angry Bear for example...or is he? In sessions, we look closer and learn that what might look like anger, often is not precisely anger, it could be jealousy, and that by identifying that nuance could change the meaning of the message sent. Identifying the real messages our brain and body are sending often changes everything, including how we react and changes what we think 'might help'.
Example 1:
A Y6 child identifies that the character is perhaps not 'angry'. They believe he is actually 'fuming'.
- They learn the real message of 'fuming' is: Perceived injustice. Something felt deeply unfair.
- They then learn and practice strategies that might help with themes of: Validation. Being heard. Clear and fair boundaries.
Example 2:
A Y4 child identifies that the same character is perhaps not 'angry'. They believe he is actually 'embarrassed'.
- They learn the real message of embarrassment is: A social threat. Feeling exposed or judged in front of others. Something felt deeply unfair.
- They then learn and practice strategies that might help' with themes of: Protection. Quiet repair. A way to save face.
Built on a sequenced, CASEL-aligned spiral curriculum with clear progression from EYFS to Year 6
We give you the structure needed for Ofsted's Personal Development judgement by having five clear pillars:
- Notice (body awareness) → Self-Awareness
- Name (emotional vocabulary) → Self-Awareness
- Know (brain and body science) → Self-Awareness and Self-Management
- Connect (self, others, community) → Social Awareness and Relationship Skills
- Hope (Target setting) → Responsible Decision Making and Self-Management
What Schools Say:
'Our children now have a language for their feelings.'
'A child can say ‘I’m feeling like Nervous Bear right now’ and be completely understood.'
'Staff find the sessions easy to run and genuinely engaging. As a leader, it's the first time our emotional wellbeing provision has finally felt joined up.'
Mrs J Davies, Cwmbach Community Primary School.
Trusted by Leaders
Lucy Coy, BA(QTS) Hons NASENCO,
Co-Founder of HeadteacherChat, said:
"We love the fact that the Mood Bears in Education resources have been developed to a high standard by people who really understand the importance of emotional literacy and have experience teaching it.
When children can recognise and name what they’re feeling, they’re far more able to regulate, communicate needs, and use the support on offer, which reduces behaviour as communication and prevents issues escalating into repeated sanctions or exclusion from learning. It also helps staff respond consistently and with understanding, because the school has a shared language for emotions and strategies, rather than relying on individual interpretation.
Strong emotional literacy is the foundation of good SEND services, better relationships, and calmer classrooms where children are ready to learn."
The Pack includes:
- All eight physical bears (Nervous, Love, Happy, Hope, Silly, Sad, Calm and Angry)
- Ready-to-use planning and resources (download)
Designed for the support time already happening in schools, this fully structured approach fits seamlessly into class based TA-led sessions with no additional timetable pressure.
Download includes:
- Structured session plans for EYFS to Year 6, designed for delivery by support staff
- Character-led stories for each 30-minute session
- Practical resources including differentiated feelings fans, feelings wheels, word mats, class posters, worksheets and activities
Coming soon: Teacher led whole-class planning.
Beautifully designed practical resources staff can use straight away
Mood Bears takes emotional literacy off the screen and into children’s hands.
Each session is complimented by carefully designed, high-quality resources that support staff can use immediately .
Mapped to the CASEL framework, the programme supports emotional literacy, regulation and inclusive classroom practice alongside your existing personal development curriculum.
Designed by specialist advisory teachers, this inclusive small-group 30-minute programme gives children practical, science-backed tools to understand feelings, build emotional literacy and develop self-regulation skills. Mood Bears is designed as an educational, classroom-based approach - not a therapeutic intervention or diagnostic programme.
In each 30-minute session, children explore a simple, relatable story based on a real-life problem. The Mood Bears arrive as experts, helping children understand what happens in their brain and body, and what they can do next. Children learn that all feelings are welcome and that, by noticing their thoughts, body signals and responses, they can begin to choose tools and strategies that help them regulate and access learning.
Our fully scripted sessions remove the guesswork while building staff confidence and expertise - creating a shared language for emotions and supporting consistent, evidence-informed practice.