Think Equal

Think Equal is a global education initiative calling for a system change in how young children are taught. It argues that the discriminatory mindsets and cycles of violence seen in adulthood are formed early, and that education is the point at which they can be interrupted. Working with world experts, the organisation has designed a structured programme that teaches social and emotional learning to children aged three to six, the window neuroscientists identify as optimal for shaping attitudes, values and behaviours. It asks governments, policymakers and school networks to adopt and ideally mandate this as a new subject in its own right, alongside literacy and numeracy. Its central challenge to decision makers is why it is compulsory for a child to learn mathematics but optional for that child to learn how to value another human being or lead healthy relationships. Think Equal is a registered charity in England and Wales and in Scotland, and a 501c3 in the United States.

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Major Areas of Work

• Early years curriculum design: Building a complete social and emotional learning programme for three to six year olds, developed with academic and practitioner experts rather than assembled from generic classroom material.

• Teacher capacity building: Training educators to deliver social and emotional learning, since the subject is new to most teachers and cannot be handed over as lesson plans alone.

• Policy and systems advocacy: Persuading governments, ministries and school networks to adopt the programme as a mandated subject rather than an optional enrichment activity.

• Home and family learning: Extending the same approach beyond the classroom so parents and carers can continue it at home.

• Education in crisis and displacement: Adapting the programme for refugee settings, where children face the sharpest disruption to both schooling and emotional development.

• Research and evidence: Testing and documenting programme outcomes so adoption decisions rest on evidence rather than advocacy.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Think Equal Classroom Programme: The core school offering, a full early years social and emotional learning curriculum with accompanying teaching materials that schools and systems order and implement directly.

• Online Teacher Training: A digital training course delivered through the organisation's own online platform, preparing teachers to run the classroom programme.

• EQlicious Home Kit: A home version of the approach built around a set of stories, designed for parents and carers to use with young children outside school.

• Refugee Settings Programme: An adaptation of the classroom programme for displaced and refugee communities.

• Rainbows in Windows: A published book resource created by the organisation and offered alongside its programmes.

The Classroom Programme is the centre of the model. Everything else supports it. Teacher training exists so the curriculum is delivered as designed, the home kit extends it into the family, the refugee adaptation carries it into settings without stable schooling, and the policy work exists to get it adopted at system scale rather than school by school. The stated ambition is not a pilot in willing schools but a new compulsory subject taught from age three.

Impact

Think Equal has reached more than 892,000 children across 39 countries in 59 languages since 2016. Independent research, including a randomized controlled trial in Australia with Federation University and Yale University's Center for Emotional Intelligence, found measurable gains in children's emotional regulation and self esteem, with the strongest impact among children who started with higher anxiety and lower self regulation.

Leadership

Leslee Udwin, Founder and Executive Chair Ruby Teale Jewitt, CEO-designate Richard King, Chief Impact and Sustainability Officer Priyanka Devani, Global Education Director

A person joining Think Equal works on a single, sharply defined thesis applied globally: that early years social and emotional learning should be a mandated subject, and that this is achievable through curriculum, teacher training and government adoption. The work spans classroom material design, educator training, evidence generation and advocacy to ministries and school networks, across many countries and including refugee contexts. It suits people who want early childhood work with a systems and policy edge rather than direct service delivery alone, and who are comfortable making an evidence-led case to governments over long timeframes.