Step 3: SELWELL Starters

In addition to strong instructional practices and routines, students benefit from explicit opportunities to reflect on Social, Emotional and Wellness skills. SEL-Well skills can be broken down into five classroom competencies:

The next step in the roadmap offers differentiated sentence starters to support
bringing SEL-Well reflections into the classroom.

Self Awareness

SELF AWARENESS EXPLANATION OF COMPETENCY: The Self-Awareness competency centers on a person’s understanding of the relationship between emotions, feelings and actions. Individuals identify and assess personal, cultural, language and biases with a well-grounded sense of self confidence.

SELF AWARENESS SKILLS:

Understanding of emotions.
Understanding one’s own strengths and weaknesses, including a cultural and linguistic strengths/values.
Capacity to reflect on beliefs, judgements and biases.
Capacity to articulate interests and motivations.
An internal sense of self-efficacy, confidence and perseverance.
Appreciation of one’s responsibility to/for others and their community.
Understanding what systems of support student’s benefit from.

COMPETENCY AS A CLASSROOM STANDARD: “The student can recognize and label emotions in themselves and others, and can express an understanding of these emotions using different forms and representations.”

Self Management

The self management competency focuses on self-regulation skills, stress management, perseverance and goal-attainment. Self-Management skills support a students’ ability to think critically and advocate for themselves.

SELF-MANAGEMENT SKILLS

Capacity to manage emotions.
Growth Mindset/Perseverance.
Critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Empathy for others.
Ability to take perspectives, see the perspectives of others and measure the size of a problem.
Conflict negotiation/resolution.
Self-Advocacy.
Advocacy for others.

COMPETENCY AS A CLASSROOM STANDARD: “The student can recognize ways to self-regulate and manage thoughts and behaviors so that they can organize their effort to join or engage in an activity or task.”

Social Awareness

The Social Awareness competency focuses on student’s capacity to focus their attention on their environment and their relationships with others. Social awareness skills enable individuals to perceive different kinds of communication in their environment, make meaning of this information and take the perspective of others.

SOCIAL AWARENESS SKILLS:

Understanding of emotions and ways that people express their feelings
Verbal and nonverbal communication.
Listening skills
Developmentally appropriate understanding of differences based on gender, culture, race, sexuality and economics/privilege
Perspective taking
Empathy
Asking questions with peers and adults.
Responsibility/belonging to a community

COMPETENCY AS A CLASSROOM STANDARD: "The student understands their place in their classroom, grade and school community, and has the skills to positively communicate with others and sustain interpersonal relationships."

Responsible Decision Making

EXPLANATION OF COMPETENCY: The decision making competency relates to a students’ ability to make constructive choices about their personal behavior and social interactions based on social norms and the safety of our community.

RESPONSIBLE DECISION MAKING SKILLS:

Capacity to express personal values, values of their family, values of the school.
Ability to describe various ways of responding to a situation.
Capacity to evaluate different responses, and select one aligned with values.
The ability to predict consequences of certain actions or behaviors
The capacity to reflect on a situation or behavior, and assess whether this is/was in alignment with the students’ values.

COMPETENCY AS A CLASSROOM STANDARD: “The student understands the difference between values, choice and identity and can use the stages of a good decision making process.”

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Relationship Skills

EXPLANATION OF COMPETENCY: The Relationship Skills competency focuses on students’ capacity to develop and maintain positive interpersonal relationships between peers and adults. Relationship skills allow students to build meaningful connections at school with others, and utilize these relationships to foster a healthy mindset.

RELATIONSHIP SKILLS:

Capacity to express personal values, values of their family, values of the school.
Ability to describe various ways of responding to a situation.
Ability to list qualities of a positive and negative relationship.
The ability to predict consequences of certain actions or behaviors
The capacity to reflect on a situation or behavior, and assess whether this is/was in alignment with the students’ values.
Cooperation skills, group-work skills.

COMPETENCY AS A CLASSROOM STANDARD: "The student can cultivate relationships in the classroom and can work cooperatively with, and demonstrate respect for, individuals with different backgrounds, identities and abilities."

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