What’s in your learners’ emotional backpacks?

I have been exploring an idea I have come to think of as the ‘emotional backpack’.

The concept is simple: every learner arrives in our classrooms carrying things we cannot necessarily see. For some, that backpack may contain anxiety, financial pressures, caring responsibilities, difficulties at home, SEND, previous educational failure or a fear of getting things wrong.

We rarely know exactly what is inside. But we often see the effect of its weight.