Welcome to the SEAL community!
Social and emotional learning helps children and young people to:
‘… learn how to communicate their feelings, set themselves goals and work towards them, interact successfully with others, resolve conflicts peaceably, control their anger and negotiate their way through the many complex relationships in their lives today and tomorrow’.
This kind of learning underpins positive behaviour and attitudes to learning, personal development and mental health and wellbeing. It is at the heart of PSHE, relationships and health education.
Research shows it also helps raise attainment. Social and emotional learning is attracting increasing attention in schools. On this website you will find age-related teaching resources and whole school frameworks to support your work.
Many of them come from the national ‘Social and emotional Learning’ (SEAL) initiative. By registering with us (which is free, quick and easy), you can immediately find and download all of the national SEAL curriculum materials and teacher guidance. There’s a progression in learning objectives that can be used in any school, and training materials if you want to introduce or refresh a whole-school SEAL approach. Click on National Resources then click the Getting Started with SEAL tab.
If you would like regularly updated teaching resources, you can also join our SEAL Community. Set up and supported by leading experts in the field, the SEAL Community is a not-for-profit organisation which aims to promote and develop SEAL through sharing news, practice, resources and expertise. Joining costs £30 for individuals, £75 for schools/settings and £100 for local authorities or other multi-school organisations. Click here to join
News update
Serious mental health conditions in children up 50 per cent in three years
Public Health England have launched a new psychological first aid (PFA) online training course to help support children and young people that have been affected by emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. The training is available to all frontline workers and anyone who cares for or is regularly in contact with children and young people aged up to 25, including parents and caregivers.
The Department of Health and Social Care in England has committed £79m to expand plans for increased mental health support. The number of mental health support teams in schools and colleges will grow from 59 to 400 by April 2023, supporting nearly 3 million children.
Mental health charity We Are Beyond have designed a free mental health and wellbeing festival for schools across the UK. Schools can book virtual sessions hosted by experts, including educational psychologists, yoga teachers, art therapists and more, with each school receiving a free programme of sessions, based on their needs. Festival day will be held on 3rd February, but schools can sign up advance and access teaching packs and resources on mental health and wellbeing.
A report from Co-SPACE on children’s emotional, behavioural and attention difficulties during Covid-19 shows an increase in behavioural and attention difficulties for primary pupils and an increase in emotional difficulties in secondary school aged children during the lockdown period. The data was based on parent reports.
Sharing practice
Students at Freehold Primary Academy in Oldham used a collection of memes displayed in their class to identify how they were feeling – and then tal
Staff at Billesley Primary in Birmingham have created a ‘Social Emotional Learning Toolbox’, a digital collection of content covering the core SEL competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships and responsible decision making. The toolbox includes visuals, videos and online interactive tools to support each competency.
In a blog for the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) research school network, Laura Butler, specialist teacher and leader of SEL, describes some of the content.
At Cherry Tree primary school in Basildon, Essex 97% of pupils have English as an additional language and 57% of the population of the area are living in poverty, according to a report last year. Wellbeing is a priority for the school. Children aged eight to 10 in four classes do different mindfulness exercises for 10 minutes after lunch each day.
First aid stations have been converted into mental and physical health stations, with trained mental health first aiders to be there at break and lunch times.
Brighton teacher and national oracy lead for Voice 21 Katy asked her KS2 students to watch the first Trump/Biden TV debate and rate the candidates’ social and emotional and oracy skills. We wonder what their verdict was ……??
Long term, the video of the debate could be a great resource to show children so they can identify the features of unhelpful interaction, then turn those on their head to come up with their own positive ‘talk rules’.
Ryburn Valley High School recently won Character Education Kitemark Plus award from the Association for Character Education.
Headteacher David Lord and his team of senior leaders have put the development of character and personal confidence at the heart of the school’s curriculum
The school reviewed its PSHE provision and introduced a new ‘identity’ curriculum. The programme has three elements – iGEN, iD and iDays.
Resource roundup
Practical tools
More and more schools are using emotion check-ins at the start of the day or lessons- using emojis, thumbs up/down/sideways, rating scales, self-re
Julie from The SEAL Community has done an incredibly boring but incredibly useful job of mapping SEAL against the new curriculum...
New research
Rsearch has shown that a short reading and writing exercise at the start of the year can have a major impact on attainment and behaviour.