Professor Brackett has worked at Girton Grammar for the last five years training teachers to implement his methods across junior and senior levels.

What he teaches is summed up with the acronym, RULER, where children are taught to 'recognise' emotion in the face, body and voice, 'understand' it, 'label' it, 'express' it and 'regulate' it. 

Professor Brackett said children to acknowledging their emotions influenced how much they learned at school.

"Life is filled with challenges, disappointments, failures and unless we have the strategies to recognise the feelings we're experiencing in those situations, we're not going to know what to do with those feelings," he said.

"A kid who fails a test and feels sadness or despair needs to understand that feeling, figure out how to manage it, so they can perform better in future."

Prof Brackett uses a 'mood meter', which can be found pinned up in most Girton classrooms, to help children articulate how they feel.

The mood meter is a square divided into different colours symbolising different emotional states.

"Kids lives are just saturated with emotion and for parents it's important to understand that how their child manages their feelings will drive their success," Prof Brackett said.

"It's about acknowledging all emotions and understanding which emotions are going to best serve me for what I'm doing." 

Headmaster of Girton Grammar School, Matthew Maruff, said since implementing the RULER approach, there had been a marked improvement in student academic performance and relationships.

“For us, adopting the RULER approach is as much about student well-being as it is about academic achievement because one thing usually leads to the other,” Mr Maruff said.