Embed

Embed evidence-based social and emotional learning strategies

Social and emotional skills are foundational to children and young people's mental health and wellbeing, now and into the future. They underpin mental health, wellbeing and a child or young person’s ability to engage meaningfully in relationships and society.

Early Childhood stream

In this module, you will learn about strategies for embedding social and emotional learning (SEL) in your early learning service and in the broader learning community. It looks at children's developing identity, their ability to regulate emotions, their social awareness and their capacity to form relationships and make decisions. All these skills support children's resilience and their mental health. The module also outlines specific strategies you can use to embed opportunities to support the development of these skills in your own practice and across the learning community.

This module builds upon foundational knowledge of SEL, social and emotional development, resilience and how they relate to mental health and wellbeing. Although these concepts are briefly recapped in this module, definitions and explanations for these concepts are not covered in detail. If you are less familiar with these concepts, we would recommend completing the Affirm module within the Be You Professional Learning. It outlines the developmental influences on SEL and discusses how your everyday interactions with children can support their social and emotional development.

Primary and Secondary streams

In this module, you will learn about strategies for embedding social and emotional learning (SEL) in your early learning service and in the broader learning community. The module walks through a model from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), which outlines five broad areas of social and emotional skills. It provides specific strategies for how you can embed opportunities to support the development of these skills in your service and in the learning community more broadly.

Who is this module for?

This module is for educators wanting to embed SEL skill development as part of their daily practice and contribute to broader approaches to SEL in their learning community.

It will help you:

build your understanding of specific SEL competencies that educators can support, and different environments where they can be developed
develop an awareness of intentional and incidental strategies that support SEL
build confidence and competence in implementing these strategies
recognise how you can support broader efforts for SEL within your learning community.

Accreditation

This module contributes to the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) and ACT Teacher Quality Institute (TQI) accredited professional development hours, addressing the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

In the ACT, completing Embed will contribute two (2) hours of ACT Teacher Quality Institute (TQI) accredited professional learning addressing standard 4.4.2 Maintain student safety of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

In NSW, completing the Embed module will contribute two (2) hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) accredited professional development in the priority area of Student/child Mental health addressing standard descriptor 4.1.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW. Educators can complete modules individually and receive accredited hours.

All registered teachers in every state and territory must ensure they have added their teacher registration number and state/territory to the My Profile page.

Please see FAQs for more details on the Be You Professional Learning upload process and time frames in which participants can expect their learning to be recorded with their relevant organisation.

Learning outcomes

After completing this module, you will be able to:

appreciate the role you play in embedding social and emotional learning in your daily practice and your whole learning community
understand how to embed social and emotional learning in your setting
create opportunities to embed social and emotional learning
seek opportunities to further embed social and emotional learning in your daily practice.

Using the Notepad

If you’re a PC or Mac user, there’s a notepad feature for you to record notes, actions or discussion points for each topic. If you’re sharing a computer with your team, your notes will be available for everyone to view. If you wish to keep your notes private, please save and delete your notes each time you finish your session. There’s more information in the Notepad user guide on the right.

Using this module

The Be You Professional Learning modules are designed to be used flexibly in the way best suited for you and your learning community.

Consider one section at a time within the modules. At the end of each page, you will be prompted to explore additional resources within Be You that relate to the content. It is suggested that you complete one module at a time and use these prompts to identify future opportunities for learning.

You will be prompted to take breaks throughout; this can aid your learning and retention of the content.

You can further your learning by using the reflection questions provided throughout the module. Use these questions in ways that suit your learning community’s ways of working and broader professional development. There are also resources, such as the Be You Action Plan and Be You Actions Catalogue, that can be used to further facilitate these discussions.