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Social and Emotional Learning
“Social and emotional learning is a booster rocket to everything we already measure in schools. Such learning should be at the core of the educational enterprise.”
-National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development
What is it?
Social Emotional Learning is the process in which students develop the ability to integrate thinking, feeling, and behaving to succeed at important developmental tasks. This includes recognizing and managing emotions, empathy, making good decisions, behaving ethically and responsibly, developing positive relationships, and avoiding negative behaviors.
-Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Why do students need SEL?
- SEL supports mental wellness
- Recognizing emotions
- Coping with stress and worries
- Building strong communities and support systems
- SEL builds connections
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Social skills
- SEL gives students real-life skills
- Practicing communication skills
- Problem-solving
- Recognizing emotions, calming strategies, and controlling impulses
- Making choices while understanding outcomes and consequences
- Getting along with others, working through differences, empathy, cooperation
- SEL improves academic performance
- Improves achievement by an average of 11 percentile points on standardized tests
- Improves classroom behavior
- Increases ability to manage stress
- Instills better attitudes about themselves
- Increases resilience in students
-Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
SEL at St. Timothy’s School
St. Timothy’s School includes a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) program for all grades that instills the importance of non-cognitive skills such as focus, communication, and resiliency. SEL classes teach self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills, social awareness, and responsible decision making. Specific lessons and units also target stress and digital citizenship. Our school counselor teaches monthly SEL classes in Lower School, and the counselor or a classroom teacher gives weekly SEL lessons in Middle School.
The SEL curriculum at St. Timothy’s is based on the CASEL model, focusing on the following components:
- Self Awareness
- Self Management
- Responsible Decision Making
- Relationship Skills
- Social Awareness
While SEL is woven throughout all of the subjects taught at St. Timothy’s, the Middle School is dedicated to the direct instruction of these important skills.
