A common criticism of Social and Emotional Learning programmes
such as Zippy’s Friends is that they take up time which could
instead be used to teach more academic subjects. However, there
is growing evidence that such programmes can actually improve
children’s academic achievement. Aleisha Clarke and Prof
Margaret Barry of the Health Promotion Research Centre at the
National University of Ireland, Galway, have reviewed the
evidence on behalf of Partnership for Children. They looked not
just at Zippy’s Friends but at Social and Emotional Learning
programmes in general. They conclude that such programmes
significantly improve children’s academic performance. They note
that the largest and most rigorous study to date, involving more
than 300,000 children, found that ‘evidence-based programmes are
intimately linked to improving children’s academic performance.’
They also found that such programmes are most effective when
they are targeted at younger children, and when they are taught
by class teachers, rather th