Social Emotional Learning
Our students are challenged by a strong focus on social emotional learning that supports their ability to regulate emotions in order to promote learning and personal growth. NWP students develop habits and dispositions that enable this growth. This focus is developed through our kindergarten through 2nd grade morning meeting programs and in out 5th-8th grade advisory program.
Key Components of the NWP School-Wide Social-Emotional Learning Supports
A critical component of the student support program is the Guidance Team. Guidance Counselors have a lower student to teacher ratio, as compared to most public schools, in order to foster the personalization that is needed to support our scholars academically and emotionally during their time at New World Prep.
New World Prep offers guidance and counseling that are fully integrated with our instructional programs and focused on college and career readiness. The School follows the American School Counselor Association National Model that consists of four components: (a) foundation, (b) delivery, (c) management, and (d) accountability. The foundation of our program will focus on outcome-oriented guidance and counseling in which students develop clear goals, and with faculty support build the skills and competencies necessary to achieve those goals. The School delivers counseling through individualized student planning sessions, providing responsive services and clear, school-wide supports for student academic, social and emotional success.
New World Prep utilizes the 4Rs curriculum (Reading, Writing, Respect & Resolution) to engage the imagination and creativity of our Scholars in grades PreK-4 to help develop critical skills including empathy, community building, and conflict resolution.
It begins with a story. Gathering the class together, the teacher reads aloud from a children’s book, choosing a story that dramatizes a social and emotional challenge for the main characters. Children are guided through writing exercises, role-playing, and meaningful discussion, as the teacher poses questions about how the characters handled conflict, how they might be feeling, and what alternatives exist for making new decisions.
The 4Rs curriculum opens the door for children to look more closely at their own experiences, and gives them clear tools for handling difficult emotions and resolving conflict with their peers. Meanwhile, teachers learn strategies they can use throughout the day to create a higher quality classroom experience in which students are focused, settled, and poised to learn.
New World Prep partners with Morningside Center to provide the training and tailored coaching to support our teachers in teaching the 4R’s curriculum. The 4Rs curriculum effectively helps to create equitable and caring classroom communities. Each teacher gets a kit that includes everything they need to teach ‘The 4Rs’, including a grade-specific teaching guide and children’s books.
The skills our Scholars and Staff build through The 4Rs can lay the groundwork for a school-wide shift to social and emotional learning (SEL) and restorative practices, leading to fewer discipline issues and a closer, kinder school climate.
RULER is an acronym that stands for Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing and Regulating emotions.
The RULER Anchor Tools help us to practice the skills of emotional intelligence every day. Each of the four Anchor Tools allow for us to best handle and regulate of emotions.
The Charter
The Charter establishes agreed upon norms and guidelines, rather than rules, to help create a more contented, emotionally safe environment. Everyone has a voice and responsibility for developing the Charter and for upholding it. It is a commitment all members make to themselves and to one another. The Charter poses three questions: The first question is “How do we want to feel?” The next question explores what behaviors each member would need to exhibit in order to have those feelings. The third question is an agreement about how conflict will be handled. Upon completion, everyone signs the Charter as their way to commit to keeping the Charter alive. When fully integrated, the Charter can be a powerful tool to encourage personal and social responsibility at home, create more harmony, and to build trusting relationships.
The Mood Meter
Our emotions provide us with valuable information. When we pay attention to how we feel and understand and develop strategies for managing our emotions, we make wiser choices and better decisions. The Mood Meter tool is an opportunity to build emotional awareness, which is foundational for developing the skills of emotional intelligence. Everyone can grow personally by agreeing to check in regularly with themselves and each other on the Mood Meter. Checking in on the Mood Meter has several steps. First, you plot your feeling in one of the four quadrants. Second, you label how you are feeling as accurately as possible. Third, you reflect on what is causing you to feel how you are feeling and then consider. The last step is to select a useful strategy to maintain your current mood if it is helpful or to shift your mood if it is not. When you share your feelings, understandings and strategies together, you open up opportunities to grow together and feel closer.
The Meta Moment
Have you ever been “hijacked” by the power of your emotions and wished that you’d handled things differently? Take a Meta-Moment! This 6- step process helps us manage intense emotions “in the moment” so that we have more satisfying outcomes. The Meta-Moment teaches us how to “prolong the space in time” between feeling emotionally triggered by something or someone and our reaction time. When we take a Meta Moment, instead of simply “reacting,” we can choose how we want to respond and be more skillful. The Meta-Moment also helps each of us to build character by invoking an image of our Best Self. By identifying and reflecting on what “triggers” us, and what we are like when we are our Best Selves, we can be proactive about developing thought and action strategies that align with our values and meet our larger goals. In short, it helps us be the people we want to be.
The Blueprint
The Blueprint is a tool for helping everyone to develop empathy and perspective taking. Using questions anchored in the skills of emotional intelligence, the Blueprint encourages those involved to understand and consider one another’s thoughts and feelings when resolving conflicts or differences, and to identify constructive solutions. The Blueprint can also be a self-reflection tool. Used effectively, the Blueprint builds compassionate conversations within the family and engenders greater optimism in the challenging moments of everyday life.
Workshops are provided throughout the year for scholars and families to better understand and use the Anchors in your everyday life.
Circles use a highly structured process to create a safe space where people can share their feelings and experiences. Circle processes have been used in schools across the country to encourage and practice group communication, relationship-building, empathy, democratic decision-making, conflict resolution, and problem solving. The circle process provides an alternative to the style of discussion that involves debate and challenging each other. Instead, circles create a safe and non-hierarchical place in which each person can speak without interruption. It encourages respectful listening and reflection.
The key components that set circles apart from other approaches are:
- Sitting in a Circle
- A Meaningful Talking Piece
- A Meaningful Center Piece
- The Opening & Closing Ceremony
- The Role of the Keeper
Peer Mediation is scholar to scholar problem solving. It is a process by which two or more scholars involved in a dispute meet in a private, safe, and confidential setting to work out problems with the assistance of a trained scholar mediator. Students are trained by a peer mediation teacher, and attend an additional after school program provided by the New York City Commission on Human Rights.