Apple’s Friends is a school based social emotional learning programme for 7 – 9 year olds. The programme is taught to the whole class by teachers trained in Apple’s Friends in the UK and internationally.
Apple’s Friends was created in 2016 following the success of Zippy’s Friends. The illustrations were once again created by Maggie Guillon.
The programme reinforces skills learnt in Zippy’s Friends for 5-7 year olds but children do not need to have taken part in Zippy’s Friends to complete Apple’s Friends; it is an independent programme. Apple's Friends is taught in Year 4 at St Thomas' in addition to the Discovery Education programme.
Apple’s Friends is based around a series of stories and the programme has 24 sessions of 45 minutes.
The six modules cover:
Children develop their own positive strategies to deal with problems through engaging activities: listening to stories, discussion, games, role-play and drawing. There are also Home Activities to reinforce learning at home with parents and carers.
Passport is a school based social emotional learning programme for 9 – 11 year olds. The programme is taught to the whole class by teachers trained in Passport in the UK and internationally. Passport is taught in Year 5 in addition to the Discovery Education programme.
Passport was created by Professor Brian Mishara at the University of Quebec at Montreal, who was also involved in the development of Zippy’s Friends.
The programme is based on the same theory as Zippy’s Friends and Apple’s Friends – the Concept of Coping – but looks quite different. Engaging comic strip stories follow the adventures of Olya and Milo as they discover a secret world of fantastical creatures in the company of their friend, Elly the dragon.
The 17 sessions are divided into five modules which cover:
Children develop their own positive strategies to deal with problems through engaging activities: reading the comic strips, discussion, role-play and games. They use the colourful game board to find as many solutions as possible. There are also Home Activities to reinforce learning at home with the family.