At Navin Elementary, we firmly believe in the importance of teaching the whole child. In addition to academic learning, we also share a responsibility for their social-emotional learning, an important factor in predicting overall success in life. So…what IS social-emotional learning, or SEL? SEL is the process through which children understand and manage emotions (i.e. self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills and social awareness). It’s easy to see how critical the development of SEL is to addressing the needs of the whole child.
Our staff has always understood that in order for students to achieve successful learning, they must feel safe and loved at school. At Navin, our #1 belief is to love your kids, no matter what. Yet we realized that it was also important to connect students with other students, staff and community members in order to help them to feel a strong sense of belonging, as well as to develop and maintain lasting relationships.
We came together as a staff and developed several ideas for strategies and programs to support SEL at our school. We recently adopted and implemented a school-wide PAX program, which is a positive behavior program that teaches self-regulation by encouraging students to increase positive and decrease negative behaviors. PAX has helped us to create a climate of consistency and continual learning of the SEL strategies and skills.
Navin has a strong mentoring program which consists of community members volunteering their time weekly to spend with special students in need of positive role models. In addition, staff members have adopted a student to check in on at least once every week to make sure everyone has a connection within our school beyond their teacher and classroom.
Some other ways we make sure all students feel connected: our staff and invited guests read bedtime stories for students to access from our You Tube channel at home. This allows every student the opportunity to hear a story read aloud before bed, as well as exposes them to teachers and staff they may not know. Navin also has a strong mentoring program with our community volunteers which benefits several students on a weekly basis. In addition, we have started bi-monthly “interest-based clubs” as well, which are hosted by staff members and community volunteers. Not only do our kids get to connect with students from all grades, but they meet and develop relationships with teachers, staff and community members while doing something that truly interests them.
We are hopeful that these efforts will help to strengthen SEL within our school and will benefit our students by making connections, relationships and developing a stronger sense of belonging. This culture of safety, love and positivity puts kids above all else and provides them with a sense of hope and a vision of success for the future.