Using Zones Of Regulations Effectively

By Paul Mulvihill

Welcome back WA! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday and got lots of rest. January can be a difficult month… cold, dark and maybe regretting a few too many mince pies over the festive period. Therefore I wanted to share a reminder about how to utilise Zones of Regulation with yourself and students. For example, it will be completely normal for some of our students to feel in ‘blue zone’ after the Christmas break or a lot of our Y11 students doing their Mock Exams could be feeling stressed and in ‘yellow’ zone. The key message to all of our students is that every zone is fine and normal. What we want to try and promote in our conversations with students is that there is a best zone to learn and thrive in ‘green zone’. Try using zones of regulation in the following ways:

• Praising whole-class behaviour, for example ‘this is such good green zone learning’ or ‘I can see everyone is in the green zone at the moment and that is excellent as it is the best zone to learn in’
• Noticing different zones in students before giving warnings out. For example, ‘It looks as though you are in the blue zone, how can I help?’ or ‘It seems you are in yellow zone why don’t you take a step outside to count to 10 and re-enter the room in green zone’
• Modelling your own feelings to the class e.g. ‘I woke up this morning feeling in yellow zone because my train was late, luckily I was able to take a deep breath before starting the lesson so I am now in green zone’
• Using zones of regulation language in restorations you might be having with students.

Some questions to think about over the next couple of weeks:

• How many times a day do you reference the Zones of Regulation poster in your class?
• How can I use Zones of Regulation in my subject area?
• What strategies do you use to get into the green zone?