Teaching teachers in Birmingham about social and emotional learning

Roger Weissberg led a masterclass for 12 teachers from Birmingham who are making an outstanding contribution to the field of social and emotional learning (SEL) in the city. 

The session was part of the Brighter Futures strategy for improving the well-being of children locally through evidence-based interventions. Weissberg told how in 1976 he heard a talk in which the speaker argued that there would never be enough resources to undo the many deficits in child development. Since then his work has focused on one question, namely how to promote children's development. This has entailed developing and evaluating numerous SEL curriculums. He shared some of his learning with participants. For example, "Pull the weeds before you plant the flowers!" - in other words, stop doing some things before introducing new initiatives. Also, SEL programmes that are sequenced - in terms of lessons building on one another - and explicit in their goals tend to produce better outcomes for children. The same holds for SEL programmes that also improve teachers' well-being: happier, more socially skilled teachers are likely to have happier students who learn better. All of this takes a great deal of effort, he pointed out, particularly given other pressures on the school day. "Ideally we want to introduce SEL programmes that don't require any extra resources, money or preparation time. That ain't going to happen!". Ultimately it is a question of priorities, and for those who might want a greater focus on Maths and English, his message - based on an analysis of over 200 studies worldwide - was clear: SEL programmes improve academic attainment.