Teacher and Happy Confident Company Schools Communications Manager Kate Landsman shares how social and emotional literacy can be embedded into any curriculum.
Article commissioned by Teach Primary.
What is Social and Emotional Literacy?
Social and Emotional Literacy (SEL) is a bit of a buzz phrase at the moment. In simple terms, SEL involves the ability to identify and label feelings in ourselves and others, and includes the ability to cope with and express emotions in appropriate ways.
By developing SEL skills, we are able to form better relationships, improve problem solving skills and ultimately have a better quality of life. This is important for people of all ages, but if we develop these skills in children, right from the earliest age, we are helping set them up to deal with the challenges in life that they will inevitably face.
What impact does improved SEL have?
Without a good level of SEL, children are unable to identify and understand how they are feeling, and as a result it’s more difficult for them to understand the underlying cause of their behaviour. This may then lead to a child reacting or behaving inappropriately. They may feel confused and frustrated and act impulsively. By developing a child’s SEL, they learn the skills they need to identify and understand their feelings, they learn to acknowledge an unpleasant feeling’s temporary state and how to sit with it by developing self soothing skills, and ultimately they gain the ability to transition from these unpleasant feelings to ones they are more comfortable with. A child struggling to regulate their feelings can’t concentrate properly on the activity at hand – whether that be learning, playing or building relationships, and so by giving them the necessary tools to help, there will be a huge improvement in behaviour, connections with others, communication and academic attainment.
How to develop children’s Social and Emotional Literacy and embed it in the curriculum
In a busy day at school, wellbeing is often overlooked and seen as another thing to try to fit into the timetable. SEL should be at the heart of everything as without this, children will not be in the right head space to do anything. You will get far more out of a class who have strong SEL skills – and this then frees up time to do all those other things you have to fit in!
There are a few advanced Emotional and Social Literacy programmes with resources to teach children about feelings and emotional regulation. These are based on the following principles, which you can use straight away to improve your pupils’ SEL and embed it into your day.
- Link SEL into what you are teaching. There are so many opportunities to discuss feelings in different subjects. Ask children to consider the feelings of historical figures, or refugees fleeing war. Consider how an artist might be feeling when producing their work, or of a sports team winning/losing an important tournament. In doing this, children better understand the characters, and the plotline and develop empathy. As well as this, by normalising talking about feelings, it becomes a fundamental part of learning and children become more emotionally literate and comfortable sharing their own feelings.
- Get talking about feelings! Make time at the start of the day, during snack time, or after lunch, and ‘check in’ with how your pupils are feeling. Introduce them to more nuanced language – they will start with very simple feelings like Happy, Sad, Angry, and ‘Fine’ but encourage them to think about other ways of describing them. You could create a word wall of all the new feelings they come up with! You could even get children to place a photo of themselves on the feeling they are experiencing. Don’t forget to tell them how you are feeling too – sharing feelings creates an emotionally open environment and allows children to see that it is ok to feel! Remember to remind them that no feeling is bad – it may feel unpleasant but all feelings are valid and temporary.
- Ask children how their feelings feel. Do they feel unpleasant, or pleasant, with lots of energy or not much? How does their body feel when they feel a certain way? Do their toes tingle? Does their tummy feel fluttery? Does their heart race? Do they feel hot and flushed, or shivery and want to curl up? Getting children to think about how their feelings feel in their bodies – developing the skill of interoception – will help them learn to identify how they are feeling and manage their behaviour accordingly.
- Create helpful spaces in the classroom. As children become more familiar with their feelings and the different levels of energy they have, create areas in the classroom with activities that reflect them. So when they feel a certain way they can identify this and choose activities that work with how they are feeling. This also helps children with unpleasant feelings learn how to sit with them, and transition out of them.
- The power of journaling and self-reflection. For older children, allow a short period in the day, maybe when they return to the classroom after lunch, or before pick up, for them to reflect on their day. Give them prompts to enable this: What feelings have they had that day? What challenges did they have? What was really great about the day? This develops self-awareness and emotional processing skills, which are critical elements of mental wellbeing. If you do this activity at the start of the day it can set positive intentions for the day too. As humans we are predisposed to think negatively and so allowing ourselves to consider the positives in our lives improves optimism and increases happiness and positivity. As a teacher, this is a great one to do at the same time as the children – end your day feeling positive, albeit exhausted!
A whole school approach to Social and Emotional Literacy is preferable and the impact it can have on behaviour, self-regulation, and academic success is proven. However, with some of the suggestions above, you can already make a big difference in your classroom. Make pupil wellbeing a priority and watch your pupils grow into resilient, self-aware, empathetic individuals who are equipped with the tools they need to be happy, successful adults.
