Social Emotional Learning
Recent life events have shown the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) as part of a quality, academic program. Thankfully, our mission as a Catholic school has been to develop the whole child in a Christ-centered environment to become a loving, productive citizen in today's world. In active partnership with parents, who are the primary educators of their children, we, at St. Pius X Catholic School, have begun strategic initiatives to integrate SEL throughout our educational environment.
One of our main initiatives to help us accomplish our goal to develop the whole child has been with the implementation of a program called Friendzy. Friendzy teaches the five-core competencies of SEL through the lens of Scripture. Some of the foundational skills taught throughout the curriculum, are below:
- Teach friendship skills
- God's design for relationship and community
- How to manage emotions
- Improve ability to set and achieve positive goals
- How to feel and show empathy for others
- How to make responsible decisions
Our classroom teachers facilitate the Friendzy curriculum in conjunction through Religion education and intertwined in other core subjects. The Friendzy curriculum was designed to change school culture by offering lessons to proactively address behavior challenges, reduce stress, improve focus and academic performance which will increase resiliency for success in school and in life.
Below is an example of one lesson in the classroom from a student:
