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One year on from Dumfries and Galloway Schools starting the Skills for Life programmes thanks to Kavli Trust funding, we hear from teachers and children about their experiences of the programmes.

Research on resilience shows that protective factors can protect children from harm and help them to bounce back from adversities such as the pandemic.

We’re very excited to be launching the latest addition to our suite of Skills for Life programmes - SPARK Resilience!

Latest news on teacher training and free Covid children's activities

We are very sad to announce the closure of our excellent partner organisation, The School Leadership Center of Trinidad and Tobago.

The Alex Panton Foundation, Partnership for Children’s licensed partner organisation in the Cayman Islands, launched Zippy’s Friends, Zippy’s Friends for Special Educational Needs and Apple’s Friends in October 2019.

Since its original development in 2013, Zippy’s Friends for Pupils with Special Educational Needs has been adopted by schools across the UK and by a number of Partnership for Children’s overseas partners.

As schools start to prepare for more children to return to the classroom, there is increasing concern about the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had and continues to have on pupils mental wellbeing.

We are delighted to have successfully launched our Skills for Life programmes in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.

In these extremely challenging times, helping children to deal with change and uncertainty has never been more important.

The Education Endowment Foundation have released a new guidance document which focuses on how primary schools can evaluate & develop a curriculum which supports all children’s social & emotional skills.

We are delighted to be working in partnership with Oldham Council and Oldham Opportunity Area to offer our Skills for Life Programmes to primary schools in the region.

Charlotte Loveday in is a HLTA in Lincolnshire. She’s found lots of ways to make her Zippy’s Friends sessions a special part of the school day.

This was not the first time that the Prosecutor’s Office in Petrozavodsk in Karelia (north-west Russia) had tried to stop Zippy’s Friends in schools.

CASEL has analysed numerous research studies from around the world, producing solid evidence that promoting SEL also improves children’s academic performance.

From September 2019, our new Skills for Life programme, Passport will be available to UK schools.

We are delighted to be offering our Skills for Life mental health promotion programmes free of charge to primary schools across Dumfries and Galloway.

Here at Oldham Council, we are passionate about embedding The Whole School Approach to Emotional Health and Mental Wellbeing.

From September 2020 Relationship and Health Education will be compulsory in Primary Schools in England.

Zippy’s Friends has been running in Slovakia since 2013, with the programme currently in its sixth school year.

Monday 4th February 2019 was the start of Children’s Mental Health Week and we were delighted to visit an Apple’s Friends class at Merton Park School in south London.

Around 100 Apple’s Friends teachers from all over China gathered at Hongxinghai Primary and Middle School in Dalian to celebrate three hugely successful years.

In November 2018, our Programme Director Caroline and Project Manager Hannah visited Kuwait to deliver training on Zippy’s Friends for Special Needs to our partner, COPING.

The incredible contribution our partner Vaiko Labui makes to the lives of Lithuanian children was recently recognised by the Prime Minister of Lithuania!

SPARK Resilience, has already been running in Japan for a few years, so Caroline went to meet Hiromi Imamura, director and trainer at the Japan Positive Education Association to hear about their experience of the programme.