Social and Emotional Learning
Social and Emotional Learning
Selecting SEL programs
Considerations for selecting SEL programs
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is a process for helping students develop the knowledge, understandings and skills that support learning, positive behaviour, and constructive social relationships. SEL is an approach that teaches students to recognise, regulate, and express the social and emotional aspects of their lives so they can operate successfully in the world and manage life tasks.
SEL programs are aimed at developing five core social and emotional competencies:
Self-awareness: identifying and recognising emotions; recognising personal interests and strengths; maintaining a well-grounded sense of self-confidence
Self-management: regulating emotions to handle stress, control impulses, and motivating oneself to persevere in overcoming obstacles, setting and monitoring progress toward the achievement of personal and academic goals; expressing emotions appropriately
Social awareness: being able to take the perspective of and empathise with others; recognising and appreciating individual and group similarities and differences
Relationship skills: establishing and maintaining healthy and rewarding relationships based on cooperation and resistance to inappropriate social pressure, preventing, managing, and constructively resolving interpersonal conflict; seeking help when needed
Responsible decision-making: making decisions based on a consideration of all relevant factors, including applicable ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms; the likely consequences of taking alternative courses of action; evaluation and reflection
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Selecting SEL programs
There are many social and emotional programs, both Australian and international, that are promoted to schools. Schools may also have developed their own program with teachers, students and parents to teach the skills, knowledge and understandings their students need to build social and emotional competence.
Selecting or developing a program that is appropriate to your school context can be challenging given the range of programs and resources available.
A selection of commercially available social and emotional learning programs has been compiled into a table of Social and Emotional Learning Programs (new window) 72k 
. The table includes the following information:
- Year level
- Sequenced structure
- Social and emotional learning core competency addressed
- Links to Essential Learnings
- Evidence of effectiveness
- Theoretical basis
- Student assessment
- Professional development
- Parents programs
A selection tool to assist schools in selecting an appropriate social and emotional learning program is also available. The tool draws upon guidelines described in CASEL's Safe and Sound: An educational leader's guide to evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs 
(new window) .
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Considerations for selecting SEL programs
There are a number of factors to be considered in examining social and emotional learning programs to ensure suitability to each individual school context.
A school's social and emotional learning program should:
- provide opportunities for students to develop positive social skills, understandings of identity and social contexts;
- be sequential in nature and build on what students have previously learnt;
- cover the five core social and emotional competencies;
- include effective evidence-based teaching practices; and
- enable judgments about the quality of student learning to be made.
Evidence of effectiveness
In selecting or developing a program, school staff should consider any evidence available about whether the program and strategies have resulted in positive outcomes in a school context. While many programs have undergone some form of evaluation, the nature of these evaluations can vary widely. A program will be considered highly effective, if for example it has been positively appraised by independent studies conducted across several program sites.
Link to Queensland curriculum
Social and emotional learning programs in schools should be delivered in the context of the Queensland curriculum and linked to the Essential Learnings. At present there are limited commercial programs that articulate explicit links between the program and Queensland curriculum.
Whole school approach
Whole school approaches to the development and implementation of social and emotional learning programs are necessary to ensure a consistent approach across the school and to reinforce the strategies within the program.
Identified theoretical framework
An effective social and emotional learning program should be evidence based and identify a recognised theoretical framework.
Student assessment
Programs should preferably incorporate a range of assessment opportunities to enable teachers to effectively assess the quality of student learning of social and emotional concepts, skills and processes.
Staff professional development availability
An important part of any school based social and emotional learning program is professional development and support for teachers and other staff involved in implementing the program. When considering the purchase of a resource to complement a social and emotional learning program, take into account whether professional development is offered to support the use of the package.
Parent component
Programs should provide for parent participation and education on social and emotional skills. For example, programs may provide specific education modules for parents thus enabling parents to reinforce social and emotional learning language, concepts, processes and skills at home.
Further information on commercially available Social and Emotional Learning programs
It is advisable to make contact with the organisation for further information about commercially available programs. You may wish to consider inviting representatives to present workshops and outline the professional development components of the program. Program developers may be able to put you in contact with schools that are implementing the same program. In addition to the availability of the program materials and staff support, the costs of implementing and sustaining the program are an obvious and important consideration for schools.
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