TroubleChutes, a new music-led emotional literacy resource, has been launched to help primary-school children explore feelings and experiences they may struggle to put into words. Created by singer-songwriter and psychologically informed creative practitioner Marsha Swanson, it combines 15 professionally recorded original songs with illustration and guided discussion pointers, covering subjects from jealousy and bullying to divorce and grief.
Rather than teaching children a prescribed emotional response, TroubleChutes uses songs and their characters as a starting point for discussion, with listening, drawing, movement and performance offering different ways to participate. The children can respond to somebody else’s jealousy, sadness or exclusion and reflect on whether that connects to their own experiences. Psychologically informed but designed as a universal resource, it is based on the principle that emotional literacy is relevant to all children, not only those who have reached a threshold for therapeutic or clinical support.
The resource arrives against the backdrop of 2025 research from the National Literacy Trust which found that, while 81.4% of 8 to 18-year-olds surveyed believed they were good at listening to others and understanding their point of view, fewer than half (44.8%) felt they were good at expressing their own feelings.
TroubleChutes grew out of Swanson’s long-standing use of music to open up conversations with children about difficult feelings and experiences, informed by her First-Class Honours degree in Psychology and more than two decades of work across educational, charitable and specialist therapeutic settings. Wanting to make that approach available for others to use, she began developing it into an accessible emotional literacy resource. The pandemic reinforced the need for the work while giving Swanson the opportunity to bring together collaborators, record the songs and develop the material into a cohesive resource that teachers could use independently.
Swanson said: “Children don’t always have the language to explain what is happening for them emotionally, but they can often recognise something in a song first. That little bit of distance can make difficult subjects easier to think about and talk about. Rather than telling them what they should feel, TroubleChutes aims to give children the space to understand what they feel and to hear how others in their peer group may experience the same situation completely differently.”
Unlike many educational music resources, TroubleChutes is written and recorded by working musicians, with a contemporary sound intended to stand as music in its own right and sit closer to the music children might encounter outside the classroom. The recordings feature musicians including drummer Martyn Barker, pianist Clifford Slapper, guitarist Tony Qunta and producer and bassist Henry Thomas, known for BBC Rockschool.
The release of Something Real as a standalone single in July drew praise from music publications internationally, including EARMILK, Atwood Magazine, France’s Indie Chronique, Australia’s TAGG and Milwaukee-based Breaking & Entering. Atwood Magazine praised Swanson’s “thoughtful songwriting” and described the track as transforming a profound idea into something “warm and accessible”. Producer Stuart Epps, known for his work with Elton John and Led Zeppelin, contributed additional production and mastering to the single.
The project’s visual world is being developed with award-winning Iranian filmmaker and animator Sam Chegini who created the accompanying Something Real video, released in August, blending live footage with watercolour textures and dreamlike visual effects. Chegini was recently the subject of a BBC Persian documentary about his work as a music video director.
The approach behind TroubleChutes has developed through Swanson’s work with children across contrasting school settings around the country. As it took shape as a structured resource, TroubleChutes material was incorporated into a wider nurture programme at Oasis Academy South Bank Primary in Waterloo, where feedback was gathered from pupils, parents and teachers. A Year 3 teacher reported that participating pupils appeared “more confident and motivated in class and outside in the playground”.
More recently, St Mary’s Hampton CE Primary School became a TroubleChutes Ambassador School, helping to refine the final stages of the resource and collaborating on the filmed pilot with pupils. Swanson also provided staff training, with the school saying it was “incredibly excited to be one of the first schools to access and use this innovative resource.”
TroubleChutes was developed and published in partnership with specialist mental-health publisher Karnac Books and is designed for flexible use across whole-class, small-group and one-to-one settings, as well as assemblies and alongside PSHE, music and literacy. A filmed pilot featuring primary-school children is being presented to broadcasters.
