An easy to create interactive wall display for assessing, introducing, developing, and supporting Emotion Word (Orange Cog) knowledge.

Before introducing Emotion Works to pupils, the practitioner invited pupils in her upper school nurture group to share any Emotion Words (orange cog) that they knew. Pupils did not have to know the meaning or be able to use the word in context, only to have heard the word in conversation or to have read it in a text. The children suggested: happy, sad and angry.

These three words were written on pieces of orange paper and displayed on the nurture room wall alongside an orange cog.

Emotion Works was introduced formally in a series of lessons on the individual cogs, but staff also permeated the environment with emotional language through discussion, story telling, games and planned activities. Each time a child identified a new emotion word, it was added to the display.

Over a period of a few months, children began to independently identify emotion words from conversations and learning activities and scribe these for the wall display. By the end of term, the number of words totalled 26. This was an eight fold increase (767%).

This was a motivating and engaging task for pupils. It introduced the concept of the orange cog, as well as the initial vocabulary to support this. As the lessons progressed, and the displayed vocabulary increased, pupils gained greater emotion word knowledge and were able to demonstrate this.

This task provides a really effective way to informally assess emotion word knowledge and the impact of Emotion Works learning. Progress is visually clear and therefore easy to identify and share with pupils and practitioners.

Thanks to Claire Pope, Nurture Teacher at Currie Primary, for sharing this idea and allowing us to share with practitioners.

This activity can be adapted to be an individual task or undertaken as a whole class or whole school activity.

If gathering emotion word knowledge in this interactive, ongoing way is not possible, our assessment tool can be used to record emotion words for individuals before, during and after Emotion Works learning. The tool could also be used to record this information for larger groups before being collated by staff and displayed in a shared space.