Dear Parents,

In the past 5 years, St Michael's has integrated a Social Emotional Learning curriculum (SEL) into the class curriculum. This is known as 'The Best Me I Can Be' program. This decision follows current best practice in teaching around the world, based on research that Social Emotional wellbeing is very important to learning and later life outcomes. As parents we are shaping our children's social emotional development through every interaction we have with our child. Many teachers also nurture this in their students. However, it is nice to think that there is further support for teachers to do this work and that it is recognised as a key part of educating a little person to become a well-adjusted, happy and engaged member of society.

Throughout the year the following core SEL skills will be covered:

Self-Awareness building - being able to identify and label emotions, recognising strengths/ positive qualities

Self-Management skills - handling emotions in healthy ways, goal setting

Social Awareness - understanding thoughts and feelings of others, appreciating diversity

Relationship skills - assertive communication, making and keeping friends, negotiation skills, assertive refusal skills

Responsible Decision-making - skills in decision making and identifying possible outcomes of choices, personal responsibility for behaviour with teaching of ethical/ safe/ legal behaviours, respect for others through showing compassion and contributing to others, problem-solving skills

To support the work of the teachers in promoting social emotional development, I would like to offer a reflection for parents in the newsletter (as often as I get to it) with some thoughts, ideas, suggestion in line with the current SEL focus of the term.

Emotional awareness and the ability to pay attention to our emotions and name them, is the first step to learning how to cope with feelings in healthy ways. This week I encourage parents to model this to their children by noticing their own emotions and naming these emotions. For example, "I'm feeling so excited today, I booked our camping trip!" or "I'm a bit stressed right now, it's been a hard day at work." After all, kids learn most by watching us.

Warm Regards
Barbara Kirby
Year 6 parent
'Best Me I Can Be' Committee parent rep