SEAL strategy for secondary schools

Tags: Communication and social skills | Emotional Literacy | SEAL Coordinator | Teaching and Learning

Raising Achievement Update looks at what the eight school case studies included in the secondary SEAL resources had to say about how schools can shape an emotionally literate ethos

The new secondary SEAL materials advocate a six-step process for developing social and emotional skills in secondary schools. These are illustrated by case study materials from eight of the 50 pilot schools.

A strategic approach
SEAL is presented as a whole-school approach to promoting social and emotional aspects of learning. The SEAL guidance material invites secondary schools to think strategically about how to create an emotionally literate context for learning. Such an approach would include discrete lessons and learning opportunities alongside a broader consideration of school ethos.

Schools in the SEAL pilot thought broadly about:

• leadership
• promoting key messages in all aspects of school life
• teaching and learning opportunities (in tutor time, across the curriculum, in smaller focus groups and outside formal lessons)
• continuing professional development of staff to increase confidence and awareness as well as the repertoire of learning and teaching approaches used to support students’ acquisition and consolidation of social and emotional skills.
  

Six steps
The SEAL approach is described as a six-step approach. The guidance recognises that SEAL is not a ‘quick fix’ approach. A whole-school commitment to social and emotional aspects of learning may take several years to introduce and embed; so evidence of impact is unlikely to be quickly identified.

Step 1 – securing the vision
The first step involves seeing where SEAL fits with the current aims and ethos of the school. The work will only become intrinsic to the school’s values and ethos if it is the responsibility of a member of the senior leadership team. Sometimes, schools identify and develop a team of staff who become the school’s SEAL working group.

In school A, a large city comprehensive, the senior team believed that SEAL could provide coherence, clarity and explicitness to existing priorities. A member of the senior team said: ‘SEAL is what we are all about, it is a way of being, we are looking at what goes on and intending to enrich it, not bolt on something new.’
It was seen to fit with other initiatives in the school, in particular Healthy Schools and a focus on the emotional health and wellbeing of staff. The leaders of the project include:

• the deputy principal in charge of curriculum, who took on the lead for SEAL
• an advanced skills teacher (AST) for geography
• the head of humanities
• the head of personal development
• the student liaison officer in charge of student support
• the coordinator of the student support base in the school
• a member of the senior learning team with responsibility for staff welfare.
  

Step 2 – identifying the starting points
Once the vision is established and leaders are clear where it fits with the school’s vision and values, the next step is to decide where to start. This involves identifying what is already happening in school that has the potential to enhance social and emotional skills development.

It is usual for a school to conduct some kind of audit of its current related work so that new ideas are consistent with established ideas and practices. The audit involves finding out the current level of skills among staff members and students, so that new provision matches needs. It is also about providing a baseline against which to measure progress. Some schools are using whole-school assessment tools to find out the current social and emotional climate as a starting point for action.

School B used regularly collected school observations and data to provide the information used to identify the starting point for SEAL, as well as a means of measuring impact for monitoring and evaluation. Specifically it looked at:

• incidence of detentions
• contact with parents on behaviour issues
• levels of concentration in lessons
• parents’ attitudes to the rewards students were receiving
• increase in interactive teaching approaches in lessons
• SEAL as evidence of work for emotional health and wellbeing, leading towards the next level of Healthy School Status.
  

School C, on the other hand, worked from a vision to transform their somewhat passive students into more active and engaged learners. The school started with a curriculum review to identify where subject areas contribute to the teaching of social and emotional skills and student motivation. This review was conducted alongside a survey of students and staff to find out their perceptions of relationships within the school.

Step 3 – development phase 1
The job of translating the vision into realistic action needs:

• staff capacity
• careful planning
• ongoing reflection.
  

The initial leaders of SEAL work have to build greater capacity and staff commitment among their colleagues in order to create a sustainable approach. This step therefore includes continuing professional development for all school staff to support the model of implementation devised by the school.

Approaches to Step 3 vary widely from school to school. School D in the case study materials is a special school for children with behavioural, social and emotional difficulties. Activities it undertook included using SEAL for behaviour support. They already used a traffic lights system. SEAL helped the school to encourage staff to see that they all have responsibility to prevent poor behaviour by making lessons more dynamic and interesting.

School G, on the other hand, used SEAL for its Year 7 transition programme. Staff from the secondary school held SEAL assemblies in the primary schools. They set up a ‘buddies’ system and an induction day to help the new students to settle and provided drop-in sessions in September for students with worries. A junior management team and the year council (both student-led groups) were involved in providing support and feedback. School C instigated SEAL assemblies and a tutorial programme, where circle time replaced administrative tasks, to realise their vision for engaging and motivating students.

School B decided to focus their SEAL work outside school in a three-day residential event for one year group alongside off-timetabled, school-based team-building activities for the rest of the school. The initiative came out of a student survey that revealed nearly a quarter of the school population went no further than their local shop during the summer holidays.

School A made staff wellbeing a top priority in their SEAL approach. It spends a good deal of its budget on continuing professional development and improving work conditions. For example, the staff receive an additional free period each week and have funded access to a counsellor with no school involvement. There is a relaxation room for staff run by a local company and a support group is provided for those in their first few years of teaching. The result is low turnover and staff who say they feel ‘well looked after’.

Step 4 – review
Activities need to be reviewed, monitored and evaluated to track their effectiveness and to identify areas for further development.

Schools measured impact in a range of ways. Some used data that was already collected (as in school B). Others noticed changes such as:

• how emotional intelligence was talked about by staff and students
• reduction in sanctions
• more positive feedback from staff (school F)
• students talking more
• staff being more aware of their own emotional skills and behaviour in the classroom (school C).
  

Step 5 – development phase 2
The new developments are introduced as a result of the review and often need supporting by another phase of continuing professional development for staff.
In school E, after the implementation of the first phase, a SEAL lead was identified in every department. This group is to meet regularly and develop subject-specific work to support SEAL across the curriculum. School G, which was focusing on transition into Year 7, is planning to refine the programme of work with the new Year 7 intake. They also plan to develop social and emotional skills in teaching and learning in general so that it is explicit in lesson planning and objectives and to have extra-curricular events for Years 7-9 with a SEAL focus.

School B is considering how to measure progress in terms of the impact of the introduction of SEAL on learning outcomes. They are developing a tracking sheet which is being trialled by heads of faculty. The sheet grades students on a range of competencies on a scale of 1 to 5. The longer-term intention is to develop this into a database which can be used to feed into the reporting process. There are also discussions about the model for a roll-out of form reviews across the whole school. The headteacher has identified time within directed hours to allow for all forms to have their teaching staff meet once each half term.

Step 6 – embedding practice
The final step is to ensure that practice becomes embedded so that it is ‘the way we do things round here’. The only secure route to embedding any practice in schools is to ensure it is part of the school review cycle and self-evaluation framework. Adequate time and personnel resource needs to be allocated.

This article first appeared in Raising Achievement Update - Jun 2007

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