Background
How does Secondary SEAL build on work in primary schools including Primary SEAL?
Primary SEAL provides a themed approach to the explicit teaching of social and emotional skills through a spiral curriculum. Following an assembly to start a theme all children explore the same area of learning, through both discrete and cross-curricular learning opportunities. This means that a child entering primary school in the Foundation Stage and leaving at the end of Year 6 will have experienced each key theme at an appropriate level each year, both in specific times during the school day and across all subject areas. Suggested activities are provided for all staff to use together and for children to take home to explore with their families.
Secondary SEAL and Primary SEAL are based upon the same basic principles although these principles are adapted to fit with the phase-specific contexts. They are based upon the same social and emotional aspects of learning (self-awareness; managing feelings; motivation; empathy; social skills) and provide a set of learning outcomes which link together. In addition to suggested whole-school approaches to promote achievement of these outcomes, Secondary SEAL has produced learning materials for Year 7 which build on the approaches and themes of Primary SEAL but make them relevant to the secondary context.
The structure of a secondary school poses both challenges and opportunities for the introduction and development of SEAL. The Secondary SEAL materials have been designed with these in mind.
2.8.1 Reading