MOWBRAY SCHOOL: A Case Study
- Emotion Coaching UK
- Jan 13, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 14, 2025
Mowbray School is a popular specialist school in North Yorkshire and is spread over two sites. One school is in Bedale, for pupils aged 3 - 16 years and another in Ripon for pupils aged 3 - 11 years.
This school was one of Emotion Coaching UK's original EC organisations. Eleven years ago, Karen Pickles (then Headteacher) and Tina Masterman, started their school on an Emotion Coaching journey which has continued to go from strength to strength.
Rachel Hargreaves (Head teacher) and Tina Masterman (Deputy) believe EC is a foundational and collaborative approach shared between staff, children and parents/carers. The school has established a reputation of offering inspiration and support to all those interested in promoting relational approaches through the integration of EC into practice.
Recently the school reorganised roles and responsibilities in staffing structures to introduce a dedicated EC pastoral team. This team supports staff to normalise and sustain EC practice within the whole school community and includes a fulltime dedicated EC Lead, and 2 other members of staff whose work is divided into 50% EC support in the school community and 50% teaching timetable.
The current EC team includes Tina Masterman, Mel Twigg, Clare Siniawski, and Tracey Morgan. The support they offer is positive, inclusive and non-hierarchical, focusing on enabling and empowering staff to develop practice confidence and competence.
They provide staff EC drop-in sessions and EC supervisions, they work alongside staff promoting consistency of EC approach, formal and informal role modelling and coordinate the ongoing EC training for the school community. The EC team also provide an important conduit for communication between management and staff and so far the staff and the children have seen positive results, and the service offered well-received.
They shared with me their top tips to normalise and integrate EC into practice:
Children like routine and consistency. It's important to provide a sense of belonging to the setting. EC helps to establish and maintain all of these.
Remember EC takes time for some practitioners to adopt and adapt- ‘EC practice is a journey not a destination’.
EC practice adapts through use and over time, accommodating the individual needs of the individual child, the changing school community and the skills and understanding of individual practitioners.
It’s all about teamwork and consistency of approach
REMEMBER:
You cannot fix everything
You don’t always have to talk
Everyone needs a person in a setting that helps them to feel safe
Be kind and curious (not critical and cruel) with yourself
It’s okay to not say the right thing - we all learn through trial and error
Adults have emotions as well and it’s okay to show and share these with children
(safely and appropriately). It helps to let the child know we all have limits and to learn to manage everyday interactions to get their needs met
Share your EC lows and highs with colleagues - it reinforces trust and shows we all are learning and on EC journeys
Their enthusiasm for and commitment to use EC to support children’s health, wellbeing and learning was clear to see and hear, and they summarised EC as “...it's just the way we are here at Mowbray”.
We at Emotion Coaching UK are thrilled to be part of Mowbray’s EC journey, and so grateful for their support and ongoing generous contributions to promoting EC in educational and community settings.
Louise Gilbert January 2025
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The Mowbray School case study offers a fascinating look at how specialized educational environments can truly transform student outcomes. It’s always inspiring to see how dedicated support and tailored learning approaches help every child reach their full potential.
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I like that the support is described as enabling/empowering rather than policing — it’s so easy for pastoral approaches to become another compliance layer. I’d be interested in examples of what an EC “drop-in” looks like in practice (is it case discussion, role-play, quick debriefs after incidents?). It’s a different context, but the way small tweaks can change outcomes reminds me of StyleLookLab — not copying a look, more adjusting what you already have so it fits better.
Having a named team (with time actually allocated) feels like the difference between “we value relationships” as a slogan and it being a lived practice day to day. I’d love to know how they induct new staff so EC doesn’t depend on a few champions carrying it. Randomly, the idea of helping people “translate” something into a new form made me think of a Ghibli-style photo transformation — you still need the underlying picture, but the process changes how it’s experienced.
The part about EC being “foundational and collaborative” with parents/carers feels key — lots of school initiatives fall down when it’s only staff-facing. I wonder what the school does when home and school approaches don’t line up, and how they bring parents in without it feeling like a lecture. Side thought: I’ve seen directories like https://hrefgo.com try to solve the “how do people actually find and adopt a tool?” problem, and EC seems similar in that it needs a clear pathway for everyone to buy in.