Start, finish, revise: Engaging Grade 10 English students through social emotional learning

DR ALIA PAN, KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS, HONOLULU, USA Done well, social emotional learning (SEL) helps children to learn better; students who participate in SEL programmes show ‘an 11 percentile-point gain in achievement, suggesting that SEL programs tend to bolster, rather than detract from, students’ academic success’ (Mahoney et al., 2018, p. 20). Past research has established that students with more developed emotional regulations skills have a greater likelihood of paying attention in class, controlling their anxiety, and building and maintaining healthy friendships (Osher et al., 2016). Current research has focused on evaluation: how to measure a student’s ability to learn and demonstrate SEL competencies (Assessment Work Group, 2019).  Assessing student understanding of SEL to measure its efficacy faces two challenges: the assessments that exist lack rigour, and SEL assessment ‘has not found its way into routine practice, despite clear practitioner need for these toolsâ€