What exactly is ELSA and how will it benefit my year 7 ds?

[elliejjtiny]

Ds4 is 11 and in year 7. He has learning disabilities but has been in mainstream throughout. He has had an ehcp since year 3. He is mostly very happy at school apart from one incident during science when he found the topic distressing, burst into tears and had to be taken out of lesson. Since he has had a scribe in year 6 and 7 he has come on in leaps and bounds and is now working at foundation level for a couple of subjects but nearly at age related expectations for most of the other subjects and greater depth for science.

He has a good group of friends, really likes all the staff and he tries hard.

I found out yesterday he has started doing ELSA. I know vaguely what it is because my younger dc who has autism and significant emotional development delay does it at primary school. He comes home with paintings etc he has done there and he really likes it.

But I'm not sure if it's different in secondary school or how it will actually benefit ds4 as he is happy at school, not emotionally delayed and doesn't have autism. At his ehcp review last month ELSA was briefly mentioned but I thought we had decided he didn't need it.

I thought ELSA was a kind of therapy for children who are unhappy and ds4 is honestly the happiest child I have ever seen. He goes happily into school every day, chats excitedly to me about his day and despite his learning disabilities he has a real enthusiasm for learning and is always asking questions, especially in science which he really loves. I'm really confused about why he is getting it.

He even has major surgery coming up and he isn't nervous at all. He had to see a psychologist beforehand and she said she has never seen a child having this operation who was as calm as him about it. When she asked him if he had any questions he just wanted to know about what toys they had in the playroom!

An ELSA is an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (if I recall correctly). So help in recognising and dealing with emotions.

Being calm could be a way of ignoring the worries, I guess.

They’re not just for children that aren’t happy - they’re a great resource to help children with anything they may worry about or anything in the school day they may find hard. You should ask the school - it may be following the science lesson. Often not offered just to those with specific diagnosed or undiagnosed difficulties - just where they think some more help may be beneficial. It’s a good thing as long as the child feels it’s helpful?

My daughter did after she had trouble regulating her emotions after some school bullying. She found it helpful. She learned some techniques that helped her. She was not generally unhappy or anything, just would struggle to express what she was feeling. She never did paintings. She did have a little notebook where she could write down her feelings.

Thank you. Turns out it was a misunderstanding and he was actually at handwriting club! One of his friends does elsa and handwriting and got confused as to which was which. You would think it would be difficult to get those 2 muddled up but when I was his age I had a friend who had both eczema and asthma and was convinced that she had an inhaler for her eczema and cream for her asthma.