Author: Sue Roffey

[This is an excerpt from the chapter on Agency in ASPIRE to Wellbeing and Learning for All in Early Years and Primary.] If we want children to become independent, active learners and participate positively in the world around them, we need to start early. Agency is the practice of giving children choices where possible, encouraging them…

[Safety is the second of the ASPIRE principles for positive education. This is an excerpt from the Safety chapter in ASPIRE to Wellbeing and Learning for All.] There are grim stories about how some schools operated in the past – and not just in fiction. They were places of cruelty where pupils were brutalised by staff…

Positivity in its many and varied facets has immense benefits for both individual and whole-school wellbeing. It addresses and builds the following: People do not always seek to identify what is going well and how to get more of this and opt instead to spend time identifying deficits and dissecting what is wrong. They focus…

Inclusion is the fourth of the ASPIRE principles for positive education: Agency, Safety, Positivity, Inclusion, Respect and Equity. Dignity is the backbone of mattering … It is the feeling of being recognised, acknowledged, included and respected for who we are or what we know … making us feel human (Prilleltensky, 2021 p 32). Inclusion is…

This is an extract from the chapter on Respect, which is the fifth of the ASPIRE principles in ASPIRE to Wellbeing and Learning for All: The principles underpinning positive education. The Early Years and Primary book was published on 3rd June, the Secondary one will be out on August 1st.  When people are asked to…

This post is based on the chapter on Equity in ASPIRE to Wellbeing and Learning for All in Early Years and Primary:The principles underpinning positive education,published by Routledge. In the UK we are just days away from a general election, so equity is more relevant than ever.  There is much talk of ‘levelling up’ but in…