The Emotional Wellness Standard for Schools
Become a YellowZone School.
A school-level accreditation for emotional wellness — recognition that your school provides a strong, structured and measurable environment for the emotional wellbeing of its students and staff.
5 Pillarsgovernance, measurement, capability, academics, culture
13 Criteria8 mandatory, 5 recommended
3 Levelscertified, silver, gold
The gap
Every school measures marks. Almost none measure how students feel.
Academic performance is tracked every term, in every school. Emotional wellbeing — which shapes learning outcomes, behaviour, attendance and retention — is rarely measured at all.
Schools that do care about wellbeing usually run scattered, well-intentioned efforts: a counsellor here, a workshop there, an awareness day in July. What is missing is a standard. A defined bar, independently verified, that tells a school — and its parents — that the work is real.
That is what YellowZone is.
What certification means
What a YellowZone School has demonstrated
A YellowZone School has been assessed against 13 criteria across five pillars and met the bar — not by buying a product or running a single test, but by evidencing real practice.
- A
Wellness Leadership & Governance
A YellowZone School has clear institutional ownership of emotional wellness — not just individual initiatives.
- B
Measurement & Insight
A YellowZone School measures wellbeing rather than assuming it — for students and educators alike — and acts on what it finds.
- C
Capacity Building
A YellowZone School invests in the people who sustain its wellness culture day to day.
- D
Academic Environment
A YellowZone School addresses structural, academic sources of student stress — not only individual support.
- E
Community & Culture
A YellowZone School makes emotional wellness visible and shared across its wider community.
Certification levels
One gate. Five levels.
Every level requires the full Mandatory gate — all 8 Mandatory criteria met. The level awarded then reflects how many of the 5 Recommended criteria the school also evidences.
Certified
8 Mandatory · 0–2 Recommended
The full Mandatory gate is met. The school has a counsellor, an approved policy, measurement in place, trained teachers, stress-aware academic policy and an annual mental health project.
Silver
8 Mandatory · 3 Recommended
Wellness practice is distributed across governance, staff development and student voice rather than resting on any one role.
Gold
8 Mandatory · 4+ Recommended
Emotional wellness is embedded across the institution and extends outward to parents and the wider community. These are the schools documented as Positivity Hubs, whose practices become the reference for others.
Every level requires the full Mandatory gate — 8 of 8 criteria met. Schools are not expected to arrive there; we plan the gaps and work through them with you.
How it works
We don’t test your school. We help you get there.
Schools are not expected to meet the criteria before they contact us. We establish where you stand, plan the gaps, and support the work to close them.
- 01
Talk
Tell us about your school. Nothing to prepare, nothing to submit.
- 02
Review
We walk the thirteen criteria with you and establish where you stand today.
- 03
Build
We plan the gaps and work alongside you to close them — policy, training, measurement, interventions.
- 04
Certify
Once the criteria are genuinely met and verified, your school is certified for 12 months.
Recognition
What your school receives
The YellowZone Certificate
Issued on award and valid for 12 months, naming the level your school achieved.
Name and badge rights
Use the YellowZone Certified School name and seal across your website, prospectus, communications and signage.
A digital badge
A verifiable web badge linking back to your entry in the register.
Listing in the register
Your school appears in the YellowZone School Register alongside its level and certification dates.
From certified schools
We had a counsellor, a wellness week and good intentions. What we did not have was any way to show a parent that it added up to something. The criteria gave us the shape we were missing.
Scale of the opportunity
A standard built for 1.47 million schools
Emotional wellbeing is measured in almost none of them. YellowZone is being built as a national standard — starting in India, designed to extend across Asia and the Middle East.
127M
students in Classes 6–12
10.7M
teachers
1.47M
schools
Lead, don’t follow.
Most schools have not begun to address this in any structured way. The ones that certify first will be the ones parents remember.
Want to look first? Run the self-assessment and see where your school stands.