A Guide to Creating Your School’s SEL Program

A Guide to Creating Your School’s SEL Program

While SEL is not yet a common topic in classroom learning, it is rapidly gaining importance as a part of the process of education around the globe. SEL programs equip students with the skills to navigate the complexities of emotions, build healthy relationships, and thrive inside and outside the classroom.

What is Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)?

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) helps children understand and manage their own and other people’s feelings, how we all get along with others, and make good choices. 

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework outlines five core competencies that form the foundation of SEL.

• Self-awareness: The ability to recognize one’s emotions, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Self-management: The ability to regulate emotions, control impulses, and set goals.
• Social awareness: The ability to understand the perspectives of others and empathize with their feelings.
• Relationship skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy relationships.
• Responsible decision-making: The ability to make thoughtful decisions that consider the consequences.

Why every school needs an SEL program

The focus on academic success is no longer sufficient. Promoting holistic learning in schools, with the introduction of social-emotional learning (SEL) programs is increasingly important. SEL programs equip students with the skills they need to thrive as well-rounded individuals. 

Here’s why SEL is important for schools:

Boost academic achievement:  Students with strong social-emotional skills can better focus, retain information, and persevere in academics. Children cope with distractions, prevent being overwhelmed during tests or school related activities, and maintain positive attitudes towards learning. This is like giving them the tools to foster a love of learning and the motivation to do well in school.  

Create a safe and supportive environment: SEL can improve children’s ability to manage their feelings and  prevents strong feelings that can lead to anxiety, depression and mean behavior in students making the environment much better for everyone.

Building strong relationships: Because children develop strong social awareness and relationship skills, children are accepted for who they are. Imagine every child being encouraged to go to school, not just to learn, but to engage with their peers.

Empowering confident learners: When the children understand and practice self- awareness and self-regulation, they become proactive independent learners who are willing to engage, take on challenges, and learn from the eventual mistakes as they embrace the spirit of learning that is so important for academic achievements.

Promoting responsible decision-making: SEL programs help students to learn about making right decisions,  prevent them from negative behaviors such as cheating as well as bullying.

Creating Your School’s SEL Program: A Guide

While the benefits of SEL are undeniable, creating a program from scratch can feel overwhelming. The truth is SEL resources are not yet plentiful unlike other common worksheets or activities which you can easily find. Dedicating sufficient time and resources to research for SEL content is needed.

As every school embarkment into SEL requires extensive planning and research work and time, it is important to identify the right resources to support their development. You can explore a comprehensive resource platform like Edufrienz to aid your setup. You can leverage on the resources to prepare the initial setup, plan the school’s roll-out strategy and integrate the topics and content into your teaching calendar progressively. You can finally assesses your performance and the students’ adoption with simple clear and easy-to-use templates.

Your SEL program can now be easily implemented while a library of appropriate resources is available in a few clicks.

Before diving into specific resources, let’s explore what exactly the steps to create one for your school:

1. Identify needs and goals: The first step is to identify the needs of the students and the key focus areas. When the key needs have been defined, outline the objectives to support your SEL program. You can use the Edufrienz Needs Assessment and SEL Skills Assessments as a guide.

1. Choose the right resources: This is where you need a comprehensive library of resources for varying purposes and for different age groups.  Edufrienz offers a vast library of highly relevant SEL activities (perfect for classroom and home use) and social-emotional learning books for students and educators. Use the ready-to-teach SEL lesson plan to cover a particular topic from their board offerings.

1. Integration into the curriculum: SEL programs are most effective when integrated into the existing curriculum. Look for resources that align with your school’s learning goals and can be incorporated into different subject areas.
2. Professional development: Educators must be well prepared to implement the program successfully. Cultivate appropriate and effective implementation of SEL activities among teachers and staff and necessary classroom climate.
3. Evaluation and assessment: Assessment of the SEL program can improve the overall effectiveness. Gathering information on students’ conduct, their performance and ability to practice are key indicators. Edufrienz supports you with the essential assessment tools and other resources.

While establishing an effective process for implementing social-emotional learning (SEL) takes time and commitment, schools can benefit greatly from being more widely recognised for promoting a well-rounded curriculum. With Edufrienz, schools can  gain immediate access to a wealth of resources to launch their program with a structured approach to promoting the social-emotional well-being of different age group of students.

Edufrienz SEL Program

We take the stress out of implementing SEL in your classroom by providing you with you need to support happy, healthy and successful learners. Our key differentiators are :

Ready-to-use lesson plans & presentations: No more scrambling! Our complete lesson plans come with engaging presentations, saving you valuable preparation time.