Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

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Do you ever have trouble setting goals or making decisions? What about handling emotions? Or getting along with, and feeling empathy for, others? These are all important social and emotional skills.

 

Social emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing and using social and emotional skills.

 

People with strong social emotional skills are better able to manage daily challenges, grow positive relationships, and make good decisions. Social emotional learning helps students and adults do well in school and in life. Social emotional learning can be taught and learned from preschool all the way through adulthood.

 

That is important because people are not born knowing how to manage emotions, solve problems, and get along with others.  These kinds of skills have to be developed, and schools can help students learn them. It is important to know that some students may need special supports to benefit from social emotional learning.

 

 

Here at PS 69 we are teaching “The Aperture Educations” eight social emotional competencies.  

These eight Social Emotional Learning Competencies are:

 

• Self-Awareness: This is how we see ourselves and our emotions. It is how we how we interact with the world around us.

 

• Optimistic Thinking: This is having a sense of confidence and hope for the future. It is speaking positively about ourselves and others. It is believing that we can achieve our future goals.

 

• Self-Management: This is our ability to regulate our emotions and behaviors. Self-management is an important part of developing relationships in school and work. It is the ability to be flexible when things don’t go the way we want or expect them to.

 

• Goal-Directed Behavior: This is the ability to plan our actions. Our ability to complete everyday tasks. And being able to persevere as we attempt to gain the things we want to achieve.

 

• Social Awareness: This is an individual’s ability to interact with others in a way that shows respect for their ideas and behaviors. It is the ability to use cooperation and tolerance in social situations.

 

• Relationship Skills: This refers to an individual’s ability to act in socially acceptable ways. They are able to promote and maintain positive connections with others. They do this by offering help and kindness toward others.

 

• Decision-Making: This how we approach problem-solving. It includes the ability to learn from others. The ability to learn from previous experience. It is using morals to guide our actions.  It is accepting responsibility for decisions that we have made.

 

• Personal Responsibility: This is the tendency to be careful and reliable. It Is also contributing to group efforts.

 

Social Emotional Screener (DESSA)

 

Research has shown that developing the social and emotional skills of students helps them to succeed academically. It also helps them gain confidence, and be happier.

 

This school year 2021-2022 and for the next two years, we administered a strengths-based Social Emotional Learning screener, known as the Devereaux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA). We are using this in order identify and support the social-emotional growth of all children in our school. The screener asks questions about areas of social-emotional functioning. This tool is completed by someone who knows your child really well, in most cases a teacher. 

 

The responses we gathered helped us to provide special support to each individual student. It also helped us to build on each student’s strengths while identifying the social emotional skills they needed to grow. Once our students’ growth areas were identified, we created plans to target and improve those skills. We are doing this in the most appropriate manner and settings.

 

The results of this screener will not be included on report cards. It will not have any impact on grades. It will not be used to make any evaluation decisions.

  

The information from the DESSA screening tool allows us to provide the very best support to your child. This will be beneficial to their overall success, both inside and outside of school.

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