Current Students and Families - St. Andrews Episcopal School

Social & Emotional Learning
SEL Skills
Faculty SEL Training
Parent Education

A major tenet of the mission of St. Andrew's Episcopal School has always been to create a learning environment in which all of our children can develop their full potential in terms of intellectual understanding, athletic prowess, and moral and spiritual character. We have fostered this mission with a dynamic curriculum, an inclusive physical education program, daily chapel, and our strong commitment to community service. The successful St. Andrew's student is a scholar-athlete-servant: one who is intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually balanced. We have achieved increasingly positive results in nurturing this "whole child" by integrating social and emotional learning (SEL) into our curriculum. The St. Andrew's SEL program is based on the understanding that:

Many different kinds of problem behaviors are caused by the same or similar risk factors.
The best learning emerges from supportive relationships that make both learning challenging and meaningful.

Ours is a multi-year, integrated program that begins in the Lower School and continues through all grades, incorporating effective classroom instruction, student engagement in positive activities in and out of the classroom, and broad parent and community involvement in program planning, implementation and evaluation. We are confident that this is the most effective approach to bolster our students' strengths and prevent problems such as violence, drug use, or dropping out.

Quotes from Parents and Teachers about the effects of the SEL Program

"The SEL Program at St. Andrew's has reduced a lot of the early teenage angst that's legendary in middle school. It teaches the kids how to trust their peers through non-threatening discussion about topics and issues that really matter. It is hard to penetrate the protective shell most teenagers have created for themselves. The SEL Program gives them the opportunity to lower their guard for a little bit only to realize that clear, trusting communication with their friends creates common ground, reduces stress and begins a pattern of behavior that is to the benefit of all."

- Jim and Cathy Heck, St. Andrew's parents

"St. Andrew's is such a dynamic, caring community. It's a place where we strive to help students and adults alike feel conneted, respected, and valued. This doesn't "just happen." We devote time and effort to this endeavor through a myriad of social and emotional learning opportunities. Our teachers are purposeful and creative in their planning and implementation of these opportunities. Strong academic achievement, happy and confident students, involved parents, and high teacher morale are just a few of the positive outcomes we enjoy from our commitment to SEL."

- Sharon Wilson, Lower School Head

"In community time, we have talked about the "behavior" car and have learned about our "wheels." We can control our "front wheels", which govern our thoughts and actions, however it is harder to control our "back wheels", which regulate our feelings and physiological responses. We talked a great deal about being the one to steer the wheel, instead of letting something else "drive our car" - be it food, another person, a situation, etc. I think it may have been a help to other kids - I know it was for me! I hope we can continue to discuss things in these terms."

- Mary Kay Sexton, 5th grade teacher

"When working with students in after-school, it has been refreshing to use a different language and reasoning process when sorting out our differences. Our students understand more clearly that there are two sides to a situation. Instead of being just an arbitrator, I can be a mediator, asking the students to sit down and come up with a solution to their situation."

- Pam Craig, LS Learning Specialist

"Everyone has noticed the wonderful, positive atmosphere in our school. The children take such good care of each other. They are open to differences and have developed the ability to learn from each other's strengths. This feeling also pervades the faculty and continues to make St. Andrew's a terrific place to teach and learn."

- Colleen Lynch, 4th grade teacher

"In the beginning, we spend time team-building and learning self-management skills. Once the kids have learned these skills, there is a huge pay-off in terms of self-managing behaviors in the classroom and time management of academics."

- Pam Lawder, 6th grade teacher

We believe that in order to have an effective SEL program, we must begin teaching social and emotional skills in first grade and continue teaching them through high school. We strive to develop these five core SEL skills in students:

Self-Awareness
Identifying and understanding what we are feeling in the moment is perhaps the most difficult to master of all SEL skills. At St. Andrew's, we teach our children vocabulary to help them name their feelings and understand the reasons and circumstances that cause them.

Social Awareness
The ability of a person to identify and understand what others are feeling is equally as important as learning to understand one's own feelings. The key to emotional literacy is being able to recognize and deal with your own feelings, as well as with the feelings of another person, while being able to differentiate between the two.

Self-Management
The self-management skills teaches children to handle their emotions in a way that facilitates, rather than interferes with, the task at hand; to delay gratification in order to pursue long-term goals; and to persevere in the face of setbacks and frustrations.

Relationship Skills
Handling emotions effectively is key to perhaps the most rewarding dimension of life - being part of healthy, rewarding relationships. Any good relationship, regardless of its nature - classmates, friends, teacher-classmate, employer-employee, or spousal - is dependent on a number of skills. These include mutual respect, cooperation, resistance to inappropriate social pressures, conflict negotiation, and the courage and tenacity to be honest.

Responsible Decision-Making
We can employer our children throughout every phase and aspect of their lives by teaching them in their formative years, step by step, how to make good decisions and how to be accountable for those decisions.

At St. Andrew's, we view attending the social and emotional needs of our students to be among our highest educational priorities. Thus, the St. Andrew's model not only focuses on students, but also seeks to foster SEL skills among its faculty. The following list indicates the range of ways that faculty attain and maintain their SEL fluency.

RESPONSIVE CLASSROOM:
The entire Lower School Faculty has recieved Level 1 training in the practices of the Responsive Classroom approach, which are employed in each classroom. The Responsive Classroom is an approach to elementary teaching that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. The goal is to enable optimal student learning.

CASEL Summer Institute
A core leadership attended training at Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. We recognize that effective leadership is crucial to the sustainability of SEL, and the SEL steering committee continues to ain support and mentoring from CASEL.

CSEE Summer Institute
We have sent more than 40 administrators and teachers to receive training at the Center for Social and Emotional Education (CSEE) Summer Institute in New York.

In-Service Training
SEL is a component of our In-Service Training, in which we cover such topics as: "How to Integrate SEL into the Classroom", "Self-Management: a Discipline System", and "How to Communicate Most Productively with Parents."

SEL Liaison Team
Teachers representing each grade in the Lower School comprise an SEL Liaison Team that meets regularly to address, brainstorm, and find solutions for teachers' concerns.

Faculty Commitment to SEL
The ability to attend to the social and emotional needs of students is an important consideration when hiring new teachers and staff.

SEL Curriculum Development
Our teachers are drafting SEL curriculum based on their training and experiences.

Wing Meetings
The faculty addresses SEL training and methodology in faculty and wing meetings.

There are many opportunities for parents to become involved in and learn from St. Andrew's. To find events for the current school year, check the school calendar and come join us!

BOOK DISCUSSIONS
Parents and faculty gather regularly for informal book discussions. In the past, we have focused on:

Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman

Blessing of the Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel

Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children, by Michael Thompson

Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and other Realities of Adolescence, by Rosalind Wiseman

The Optimistic Child: Proven Program to Safeguard Children from Depression and Build Lifelong Resistance by Martin Seligman, Ph.D.

BROWN BAG LUNCHES
Parents bring a sack lunch and meet at 12:15 to listen to a variety of speakers, including teacher panels and parent experts, on subjects such as nutrition, the discipline system, how much pressure to put on your children, the SAS math program, and the SEL initiative.

Look for our list of 2011-2012 Brown Bags coming soon!

DIVISION HEAD GATHERINGS
St. Andrew's Division Heads host parents several times during the school year at teas, where matters particular to the division are discussed and parents are given the opportunity to ask questions and express concerns.

PARENT PEER GROUPS
Parents meet to share ideas and support around issues relating to parental challenges. Topics covered in past meetings have included friendship, responsibility, time management, Internet use, navigating peer relationships, civility among middle school children, and transition. Meetings are generally held 4 times a year - twice each semester.

SPEAKER SERIES
St. Andrew's Speakers' Series has featured such notables as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Laura Sessions Stepp, author of Our Last, Best Shot: Guiding our Children through Early Adolescence; Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes, Edward M. Hallowell, author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness: Five Steps to Help Kids Create and Sustain Lifelong Joy; Michael Thompson, author of Raising Cain and Best Friends, Worse Enemies, Mel Levine, author of A Mind at a Time; and other authors, including Jane Healey, Madeline Swift, and Adele Faber.