Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Personal, Social and Emotional development (PSED) are typically grouped together to form one area of Childhood Development, this is due to them being firmly entwined and overlapping topics. Although they are often related to one another they can all be looked at individually, with different factors effecting the development of each within a child. Out of the 17 Early Years goals, Personal, Social and Emotional development covers three of these (Department of Education 2012).

Personal development: Is based upon children’s obtainment of knowledge, individual personal skills, their ability to think, and the way in which they perceieve themselves (Dowling 2009).

Social Development: “How we come to understand ourselves in relation to others, how we make friends, understand the rules of society and behave towards others” (National Strategies 2008, P5).

Emotional Development: Having feelings, understanding them and having the ability to feel empathy towards others and their feelings(National Strategies 2008).

Why is it important for teachers to be knowledgeable of Childhood development, particularly PSED?

It is imperative that young children start the process of PSED in order for them to be able to progress and flourish as young individuals. By developing these different aspects of their personality and characters it will support and help them with a variety of areas in life including relationships, confidence and self-esteem. In order for this to be achieved they need to feel safe and secure. American psychologist Abraham Maslow is quoted below using this idea..

As teachers we need to be well-informed and fully acquainted with the idea and concepts of PSED in order to be able to create an environment and relationships whereby all the children can start on this journey, which can, and will determine them as individuals for the rest of their lives. By not being knowledgable regarding this topic we are putting our pupils at a disadvantage which could create a barrier to their Personal, Social and Emotional Development (Dancy 2012).

Theories in relation to PSED- There are many theories/theorists relating to child development but this page shall focus on just two and what they mean for PSED.

B.F Skinner

Skinner was a behaviourist psychologist who believed that every action taken by a human is a consequence of that same action.
He believed if a certain behaviour was punished it was unlikely that the individual would do it again, but if the consequence of the action were good, it would be strengthened. Skinner called this reinforcement.
Skinners theory was called operant conditioning. (Keenan and Evans 2009).

Relating this to PSED

If a child is punished for behaviour that is unacceptable, Skinner believes this will stop them from repeating it which would help them develop personally, socially and emotionally by learning what is wrong and what is right.
But a child could be punished for something that isn’t wrong, or not be punished for something that is, which means that their development would falter.
If we learn by our environment like Skinner believed, if we are in an home/school that is not reinforcing good behaviour, or punishing bad we will not learn the correct behaviour and therefore shall not develop in the way we should, personally, socially or emotionally (Doherty and Huges 2009).

Les Vygotsky

He believed social interaction is fundamental to a child’s development and strongly believed that their social learning came before their cognitive development.
MKO (More Knowledgeable Other) is what Vygotsky describes as simply a person or thing that has more knowledge about a subject that that of the learner, or they would be unable to learn from them. The learner needs a MKO in order to progress and develop.
ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) The zone is the distance from which the child can perform a given task with guidance and help from an adult, to where they are able to carry out the task successfully for themselves. (Keenan and Evans 2009).

Relating this to PSED

Without social interaction, children do not and cannot develop successfully. For a child to learn how to do a jigsaw, they need to have some kind of social interaction whereby a parent or MKO shows them how a jigsaw is to be completed before they can do this themselves. They need to have this interaction before they are able to develop cognitively. This is the same for social and emotional aspects of life. If a child has never been in a situation where they have been told and shown rules they would not be aware of these, and if a child has never had any interaction where different emotions/people they would not be in a position to understand these or know how to behave, which would again falter their development emotionally and socially.
MKO is key with PSED, many have pointed out this does not need to be an adult, but can be a friend of the child’s that has knowledge in the surrounding area that the child in question does not, or even more recently it could be a computer or some form on technology that they are able to learn from. Without having a MKO, which interact with them socially, they can not develop cognitively as this comes after the social interaction (Doherty and Huges 2009).

What policies surround PSED within schools?

The EYFS requires teachers to review children’s progress when a child is 3 years old, they are then expected to share this information with parents/carers. Teachers are then, at the end of reception expected to do the same. In order for teachers to be able to gauge weather a child is where they should be with their development, the Department of Education have designed a guide, whereby different it has different tasks and activities that a child should be able to do alongside the age that they should be able to do this. Teachers can use this to see weather individual children maybe ahead of the development that they should be showing at their age, or indeed behind (Department of Education 2012). The PSED are separated into three categories;

Self-confidence and self-awareness
Managing feeling and behaviour
Making relationships

Here is a link to the document, called “Early Years Outcomes, A non-statutory guide for practitioners and inspectors to help inform understanding of child development through the early years.” https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/237249/Early_Years_Outcomes.pdf

What can you do as an early years practitioner to ensure your pupils progress with their PSED?

There are endless amounts of activities and practises that could be going on in your classroom, some all day everyday, others one off tasks that can help the development of the children’s PSED. By taking the three categories that PSED is broken into in the EYFS we can look at different activities you could have around the classroom to help the pupils progress and develop as individuals.

Self-confidence and self-awareness (Early Learning HQ 2013)

By challenging pupils to try new and different tasks, this will increase their self-confidence as they begin to realise that are able to do things that are new to them.
Having one ‘new’ task a week in the classroom, that every child has to do. Once completed all children can take it in turn to show the class their piece of work/activity, this builds their confidence, lets them see what they are capable off.
The ‘new’ task should be somewhat open ended so they are able to show their own ideas, having some examples on show will help them to see they do not all have to be the same.
Be sure to let the children know they if they are stuck, then a teacher is there to be able to help them, they do not have to struggle.
Circle time, having the children say what they like about each other.

Managing feeling and behaviour (Early Years Support Service 2012)

Having something as simple as a ‘feelings chart’, where children can come in and stick a face on it, depending on the way they are feeling when they can come into school. They should be allowed to change this throughout the day if they start feeling differently, and they should explain to you as a teacher why they are feeling this particular emotion.
By having a clear behaviour strategy set out in the classroom, that is consistent and fair will start the children feeling responsible for their own behaviour.
By having a quiet section (often a reading corner) in the classroom allows a place for children to go if they are feeling sad, annoyed, angry and have time to calm down and time on their own.

Making relationships (Department of Education 2012)

By promoting paired/group work in your classroom encourages sharing and co-operation between the children. This could be whilst doing some work/activity or something simple like taking the register in pairs.
By placing children in groups with children they might not necessarily normally play with, allows them to be exposed to other people and different ideas.

Making sure that your relationship with your pupils is strong and you show role-model qualities to them is one of the strongest ways in which to help develop this part of their characters. Children learn from imitation and copying behaviour so if you are at all times encouraging and setting examples, then the children should and will take note of this.

These are some of our own ideas but there are many website available that you can get ideas from, here is one that we find very helpful: http://www.earlylearninghq.org.uk/class-management/psed/

Things to take into consideration

– It is important to realise there are many reasons why a child maybe behind in their PSED, it could be because of things that have happened, or maybe a sign that things are happening to the child. You should not compare children to their class friends but as individuals.

-Those children born premature often develop slower than others – Children living in poverty – Parental drug/alcohol abuse – poor housing – abuse – discrimination (racism, social) – lack of relationship with teachers.

-All children develop at different rates, and no two children will progress at the same time, as a teacher it is your responsibility to ensure you are providing all children with the necessary environment and resources to enable them to flourish and develop in the way that they should.

All photographs reference: Hemstead S, 2013