Top Tips on Coaching Children through Anxiety in the Classroom

As teachers, we’re more than educators—we're listeners, role models, and, often, life coaches. And in today's classrooms, anxiety has become one of the most common challenges facing children and young people. This blog is your guide to understanding the signs of anxiety in primary school students , what’s happening inside their brains and bodies, and—most importantly - how we can build anchor relationships with anxious pupils.

Understanding Anxiety: What’s Really Going On?

Anxiety isn’t just "worrying too much." It’s a biological response to perceived threat, even if that threat isn’t visible or logical. When a child feels anxious, their amygdala (the brain’s alarm system) goes into overdrive. This triggers the hypothalamus to activate the sympathetic nervous system, releasing hormones such as:

Adrenaline – speeds up heart rate, sharpens senses, and prepares muscles to act. It’s what gives us that rush of energy in stressful situations.

Cortisol – helps the body maintain alertness but can cause problems if it stays high for too long, leading to fatigue, trouble concentrating, and emotional sensitivity.

Children become hyper-alert noticing and looking for threats all around them. They struggle to listen, problem solve or even understand what we say to them, they are trying to survive.

In real time, this looks like:

• Avoiding school or activities.
• Struggling to concentrate.
• Clinginess or meltdowns.
• Frequent tummy aches or headaches.
• Sudden outbursts or going quiet.

As teachers, recognising these signs is step one in coaching a child through the storm.                    

Why school triggers anxiety in children

School is full of social, academic, and sensory pressures so can cause children and young people to be hyper-aware of:

• Fear of failure or being wrong.

• Overwhelm in busy classrooms.

• Social dynamics and fear of judgement.

• Transitions and unpredictability.

How Teachers Can Help Children with Anxiety

 Predictability + Flexibility = Safety

Offer visual timetables and go through them with the child.

Give advance warning of changes to the timetable and or to staff.

Create "safe spaces" where pupils can go to self-regulate. A great way to do this is creating a regulation station (see below resource) in the classroom. You might also need a space outside the classroom where children can go. This is best worked out between the child and the teacher.

Listen to what the child or young person believes and shares with you, be curious and supportive. The worst thing that an anxious person can hear is ‘Don’t worry it will be fine.’ If they could stop worrying they would, no one wants to feel sick, shaky and on edge all day.

Gentle Exposure Over Avoidance

Help them "dip a toe in" instead of diving into anxiety-provoking situations.

Break big tasks or transitions into small, manageable steps.

Work with the child or young person to break things down into what they think they can manage. And remember, on some days they can manage more than others but they won’t understand why. Be compassionate, they are really suffering.

Regulation First, Then Reasoning

Use breathing, grounding techniques, or movement to settle the nervous system before trying to talk it through. Make sure you go into situations feeling calm and grounded, children will respond to you and how you are feeling. If you are calm, thoughtful, curious and compassionate then they will use this (co-regulate) to help them cope. Your curiosity will ignite theirs and you can wonder together on how amazing the brain and the body are and how they work together so well.

See the resources below: Calming Strategies and Coping Strategies Poster

Morning Meet-Ups
A friendly face at the gate, a 1:1 check-in, or a calm start task can ease the transition into school.

Many children and young people will feel sick with their anxiety and many will not have been able to eat breakfast due to this. As they calm, they will start to feel hungry and their blood sugar will start to affect them. Find things that school allows you to offer them to eat, or better still let parents bring in a packed breakfast for when they are ready.

Anchor Relationships

Build strong relationships so pupils know they have adults they can trust when things get overwhelming.

Relationships are key, when we feel stressed or overwhelmed we need to be supported by someone they trust, doing the things that have been talked about and planned. This helps regulate a child or young person’s internal system. Jobs with adults work well, sorting ordering, normal everyday tasks. These give the mind something to think about and gradually their internal system calms and their thinking, problem solving brain comes on line. 

The immediate effect of anxiety is the fight or flight response as the system is in survival mode.

Listening to Understand, Not to Fix

Children don’t always want us to fix their worries. Sometimes they need us to hold space for them—to hear them, name their feelings, and show that it's okay to feel anxious.

Try:

“It makes sense you feel worried. This is hard.”

“That’s your body doing its best to protect you. Let’s help it feel safe again.”

“How shall we tackle that together?”

“What steps do we need to be able to manage? Remember one step at a time”

Use emotion coaching to help children name what they’re feeling and connect that feeling to a physical response. Understanding their own anxiety builds self-awareness and confidence in managing it.                                                                                            

Working With Parents: A Team Around the Child

• Share what you’re seeing in school in a non-judgemental way.
• Reassure them they’re not alone—parental anxiety can be a factor, so hold space for them too.
• Offer consistency across home and school with shared strategies.
• Invite parents to walk alongside, not behind or in front. They are co-coaches in this journey. 

Whole-School Approaches That Make a Difference

Train all staff in trauma-informed and emotionally literate approaches.

Include PSHE lessons on emotional literacy and self-regulation.

Destigmatise anxiety—make it part of normal conversations (see resource below).

Appoint mental health champions or use student ambassadors to support peer-to-peer understanding.