SEL - Junior School Update

SEL Junior School Term 2 Update

As the first semester of 2024 draws to a close, and the students eagerly anticipate Friendship FairDay next week, it is an opportunity to reflect on the influence of social-emotional learning on junior school children. We have covered a great deal across two terms with the main focus being social engagement with friends and peers in a calm space. We have done this through play-based learning, playing games, working on collaborative projects together, working alongside each other, and focusing on skills such as active listening, turn-taking, sharing, building positive communication, and regulation skills. 

We have mixed up the play scenarios with opportunities to explore our feelings and name these. Gaining an understanding of how emotions can make us feel in our bodies, how they make us act, react, and move, and how our actions, words, and body language not only impact ourselves but can impact others. We explored these different emotions and ways to find our calm, understanding that“calm” looked quite different for everyone – someone might colour in, others might shoot some hoops or kick a soccer ball, and others might draw or read a book. 

We checked in with our emotional thermometer and discussed and discovered that feelings are not permanent, that they shift and change throughout our days depending on different situations. We explored “worries” and what these might look like for different children. Some children think about things more than others. The worry boxes they made were a chance to place these “worries” inside whilst also sharing them with a trusted adult. We discussed the values of friendship and what was important to each of us in a good friend – ie, someone who acts with kindness or makes us laugh, helps us when we are hurt or sad or listens to our ideas. 

The children made beautiful friendship flowers which we turned into a gorgeous, colourful friendship garden (see image). Most weeks our lessons connected with a story and we incorporated literacy and comprehension of the story, often connecting with Indigenous stories.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING!!

Toward the end of term, we incorporated a session on active listening, and the children participated in a game of “broken telephone” where they sat in a circle and passed on a simple two-word message to each other.

As the words were shared, occasionally confusion reigned or laughter erupted when someone didn’t understand the message, and the outcome was often different to the

original message. It was an opportunity to remind the children that LISTENING is one of the key skills we can hone throughout our life, with teachers, peers, friends, family, etc. 

If we talk when the teacher is talking we miss the message and distract others and they miss the message too. If we talk over our friends when they are talking, they feel unheard or ignored. 

Importantly, we focused on sharing stories that our friends have told us, and that often the original message can get mixed up and confused and often is not even the same story as what they once heard. We also talked about respecting another person’s right to share their own story. 

Finally, our last day prior to Friendship Fair Day was filled with joy, laughter, collaboration, connection, and communication as we incorporated a final play-based learning session.