How can educational establishments contribute to the progression of education in England?

Within the secondary sphere of education, where I practice my teaching, there have been several initiatives to make educational establishments more emotionally intelligent.

Practitioners such as Mayor and Salovey (1997) have defined Emotional Intelligence (EI) as the ability to; perceive accurately, appraise and express emotion, as well as being able to being able to handle feelings, understand emotion and regulate emotion to promote emotional and intellectual growth.

Moreover the works such as that of Peter Rubery have been designed to explore Leadership for the Emotionally Intelligent School (2001). Rubery encourages school leaders to investigate the foundations for adolescent behaviour rather than constantly battle with the effects in the classroom.

One current example is the Every Child Matters initiative which looks to allow students and teaching staff develop every student in the classroom. A common scenario, the weaker ability students are given a lot of specialised attention while high achieving students receive accolades. However there has been a middle ground of ‘nameless’ children. It is these nameless children who can under achieve academically and look to negative behaviour a way to attract attention.

Educational establishments are now using the research of educational practitioners and brain research to develop initiatives that contribute to educational progression.