I take care, you take care
Social-Emotional Program

I take care, you take care
Social-Emotional
Program

Social and Emotional learning

Social and Emotional learning is a relevant topic in our school.

The development of activities which promote social-emotional intelligence and social skills (empathy, assertiveness, cooperation…) helps to improve the school environment and coexistence.

The objective of the program is that students learn the importance of emotions in order to foster more satisfactory social relationships.

This objective is achieved thanks to the training of emotional competences of both our students and the entire educational community. Therefore, it is important to create safe and connected environments where our students can develop emotionally and academically; spaces where they feel they truly belong.

Also, this objective is achievable thanks to the implementation of multiple methodologies that work on emotional regulation and that allow us to create an environment that transforms the teaching-learning processes by creating an inclusive, safe, compassionate and bully-free zone.

Students accept their own emotions and validate the emotions of others through:

  • Democratic assemblies: assemblies based on respect, love and tolerance. Where we teach our students to resolve conflicts cooperatively and in community. In addition, they are a space for free expression, as well as a recurring opportunity for our students to enhance a multitude of social skills.
  • “Morning greetings”: we evoke moments of connection upon arriving at the center and entering the classroom with their adult mentor. Greetings are used in the classroom to help create real connections with our students. The key is to make eye contact and connect. This daily ritual offers the opportunity to assess a child’s inner state and the possibility of helping them turn their day around.
  • “Safe places”: In the Safe Place Self-Regulation Center, children use optimal tools and strategies tailored to individual needs and characteristics in order to change their inner state from altered to serene. It is a harmonious space where children can remain calm and safe, connect with their inner Self and validate their own emotions. Only in this state of serenity can children access the higher brain functions necessary for problem solving and learning.
  • Peace Table: The peace table is a technique to help children resolve conflicts before emotions flare up. It is a small table with chairs for each of the children, on top of which you should place some elements.

Emotional self-regulation

With these human, visual and material resources, emotional self-regulation creates a safe and connected environment. Allowing the students to understand their own emotions and develop their own strategies and mechanics of control over emotion.

Trough this program we teach children social-emotional and communication skills that allow them to self- manage thanks to personal tools and strategies, thus being able to resolve their conflicts, developing optimal social behaviors to adapt to each environment. These skills are related to assertiveness, empathy and emotional balance.

With this program we want to achieve the following objectives:

  • Familiarize students with basic emotions, acceptance and emotional expression.
  • Conceptualize self-esteem, qualities and achievements.
  • To differentiate between bad behaviour and good behaviour.
  • To recognize the different roles involved in a conflict that leads to bullying.
  • To practice assertive communication with students.
  • Cooperate and work as a team.
  • To accept emotions without judging them.
  • To know the general functions of emotions.
  • To understand the need not to label emotions as positive or negative.
  • To recognize and assume the conditions on which school coexistence is based (teamwork, group cohesion, good treatment…).
  • To reflect on good and bad treatment in order to promote values of respect, solidarity, empathy and tolerance.
  • Differentiate when one is being treated well by other classmates and also how we have to treat others.
  • Express strategies that help to recognize and overcome fear to ask for help.
  • To look for alternatives that can be used in a situation of harassment either by the victim or by the observers.
  • Promote the support network that the group has within the classroom to prevent of bullying.

Through this program, students will be the main characters of their personal interactions, the control of emotions and the creation of new bonds. Always under the safety and protection of the mentor.

Comprehensive approach:

Positive Discipline:

Los pilares pedagógicos que sustentan la Disciplina Positiva son los siguientes:

  • Ser amables y firmes al mismo tiempo (respetuosos y motivadores).
  • Ayudar a los niños a sentirse importantes (conexión adulto-niño antes que corrección).
  • Enseñar valiosas habilidades para la vida (respeto, habilidad para resolver problemas, participación, responsabilidad…).
  • Aprender de las consecuencias lógicas y naturales de sus actos.
  • Ayudar a los niños a que desarrollen sus capacidades y sean conscientes de ellas.
  • No incluir el castigo físico, el chantaje o la manipulación.
  • Ser eficaz a largo plazo en los distintos contextos sociales.

Both to resolve conflicts and to guide our educational practice and assist children in the management of basic rules of coexistence and respect for oneself, peers, the material and the environment, in “Greenleaves Montessori” we are guided by the pedagogical principles that underpin Positive Discipline.

We define Positive Discipline as an educational model created by and to understand the behavior of both children and their families, and how to approach these attitude to guide them on their way, always in a positive, affective, but firm and respectful way at the same time.

The entire educational team promotes communication, love, understanding and empathy to enjoy relationships with both children and their families.

We offer alternatives to understand the behavior of their children (even when it is not appropriate) and redirect it with respect, without power struggles and always from a positive view.

It is an approach that does not include excessive control or permissiveness.

It is based on mutual respect and collaboration with the intention of teaching the child basic life skills.

The pedagogical framework that support Positive Discipline are the following:

  • Being kind and firm at the same time (respectful and motivating).
  • Help children feel important (adult-child connection before correction).
  • Teach valuable life skills (respect, problem-solving skills, participation, responsibility…).
  • Learn from the logical and natural consequences of their actions.
  • Help children develop their abilities and be aware of them.
  • Do not include physical punishment, threaten or manipulation.
  • Be effective in the long term in different social contexts.

Conscious Discipline:

A transformational Social Emotional Learning and classroom management program created by Dr. Becky Bailey. A self-regulation program based on neuroscience, child development research and psychology. Conscious Discipline teaches adults to foster safety and connection, unleashing the ability to learn and problem solve. Both children and adults learn to manage their thoughts, feelings and behaviour, empowering them to achieve their goals. (https://consciousdiscipline.com/)

The seven skills of this discipline are the only skills we need to be able to transform everyday conflicts into learning moments. These moments give us the opportunity to teach our students the social-emotional and communication skills necessary to manage themselves, resolve conflict, prevent bullying and develop proactive and social behaviours.

The seven skills that are developed within this vision are:

  • Composure.
  • Courage.
  • Assertiveness.
  • Choices.
  • Empathy.
  • Positive intention.
  • Consequences of each action.

Democratic education:

Democratic education is known as that model and idea of teaching that is given to all equally. Other definitions bring the notion that it is an innovative teaching method based on democracy as a plan of instruction.

It is characterized by trying to include values such as justice, equity, trust, respect and self-determination for those who learn from it.

Democratic education is presented as a new approach in the way of conceiving the education and its structure. As it is based on respect behalf of children, teenagers and children, it has the following characteristics:

  • Active participation of all the components that make up educational systems: teachers, community, students, representatives and administrative staff.
  • The exchange of ideas among students is encouraged so that they can express their interests. The teacher serves as a facilitator of knowledge and a guide when there is a lack of understanding.
  • Democratic education encourages student responsibility for their own emotional involvement.
  • It dispenses with assessments, as it does not focus on grading the learner but on determining achievement.

These objectives have been focused on the following precepts:

  • Stimulate students’ personal interest in social relationships and help them overcome various drawbacks.
  • To maintain social control.
  • Learning to develop essential skills and abilities to reach agreements through procedures that endorse and maintain respect for one’s fellow citizens.

Undoubtedly, they are systems that defend equality and social participation. Systems that seek belonging to the entire educational community in order to generate a harmonious environment where children, workers and families feel an important part of it.

Social and Emotional learning

Social and Emotional learning is a relevant topic in our school.

The development of activities which promote social-emotional intelligence and social skills (empathy, assertiveness, cooperation…) helps to improve the school environment and coexistence.

The objective of the program is that students learn the importance of emotions in order to foster more satisfactory social relationships.

This objective is achieved thanks to the training of emotional competences of both our students and the entire educational community. Therefore, it is important to create safe and connected environments where our students can develop emotionally and academically; spaces where they feel they truly belong.

Also, this objective is achievable thanks to the implementation of multiple methodologies that work on emotional regulation and that allow us to create an environment that transforms the teaching-learning processes by creating an inclusive, safe, compassionate and bully-free zone.

Students accept their own emotions and validate the emotions of others through:

  • Democratic assemblies: assemblies based on respect, love and tolerance. Where we teach our students to resolve conflicts cooperatively and in community. In addition, they are a space for free expression, as well as a recurring opportunity for our students to enhance a multitude of social skills.
  • “Morning greetings”: we evoke moments of connection upon arriving at the center and entering the classroom with their adult mentor. Greetings are used in the classroom to help create real connections with our students. The key is to make eye contact and connect. This daily ritual offers the opportunity to assess a child’s inner state and the possibility of helping them turn their day around.
  • “Safe places”: In the Safe Place Self-Regulation Center, children use optimal tools and strategies tailored to individual needs and characteristics in order to change their inner state from altered to serene. It is a harmonious space where children can remain calm and safe, connect with their inner Self and validate their own emotions. Only in this state of serenity can children access the higher brain functions necessary for problem solving and learning.
  • Peace Table: The peace table is a technique to help children resolve conflicts before emotions flare up. It is a small table with chairs for each of the children, on top of which you should place some elements.

Emotional self-regulation

With these human, visual and material resources, emotional self-regulation creates a safe and connected environment. Allowing the students to understand their own emotions and develop their own strategies and mechanics of control over emotion.

Trough this program we teach children social-emotional and communication skills that allow them to self- manage thanks to personal tools and strategies, thus being able to resolve their conflicts, developing optimal social behaviors to adapt to each environment. These skills are related to assertiveness, empathy and emotional balance.

With this program we want to achieve the following objectives:

  • Familiarize students with basic emotions, acceptance and emotional expression.
  • Conceptualize self-esteem, qualities and achievements.
  • To differentiate between bad behaviour and good behaviour.
  • To recognize the different roles involved in a conflict that leads to bullying.
  • To practice assertive communication with students.
  • Cooperate and work as a team.
  • To accept emotions without judging them.
  • To know the general functions of emotions.
  • To understand the need not to label emotions as positive or negative.
  • To recognize and assume the conditions on which school coexistence is based (teamwork, group cohesion, good treatment…).
  • To reflect on good and bad treatment in order to promote values of respect, solidarity, empathy and tolerance.
  • Differentiate when one is being treated well by other classmates and also how we have to treat others.
  • Express strategies that help to recognize and overcome fear to ask for help.
  • To look for alternatives that can be used in a situation of harassment either by the victim or by the observers.
  • Promote the support network that the group has within the classroom to prevent of bullying.

Through this program, students will be the main characters of their personal interactions, the control of emotions and the creation of new bonds. Always under the safety and protection of the mentor.

Comprehensive approach:

Positive Discipline:

Los pilares pedagógicos que sustentan la Disciplina Positiva son los siguientes:

  • Ser amables y firmes al mismo tiempo (respetuosos y motivadores).
  • Ayudar a los niños a sentirse importantes (conexión adulto-niño antes que corrección).
  • Enseñar valiosas habilidades para la vida (respeto, habilidad para resolver problemas, participación, responsabilidad…).
  • Aprender de las consecuencias lógicas y naturales de sus actos.
  • Ayudar a los niños a que desarrollen sus capacidades y sean conscientes de ellas.
  • No incluir el castigo físico, el chantaje o la manipulación.
  • Ser eficaz a largo plazo en los distintos contextos sociales.

Both to resolve conflicts and to guide our educational practice and assist children in the management of basic rules of coexistence and respect for oneself, peers, the material and the environment, in “Greenleaves Montessori” we are guided by the pedagogical principles that underpin Positive Discipline.

We define Positive Discipline as an educational model created by and to understand the behavior of both children and their families, and how to approach these attitude to guide them on their way, always in a positive, affective, but firm and respectful way at the same time.

The entire educational team promotes communication, love, understanding and empathy to enjoy relationships with both children and their families.

We offer alternatives to understand the behavior of their children (even when it is not appropriate) and redirect it with respect, without power struggles and always from a positive view.

It is an approach that does not include excessive control or permissiveness.

It is based on mutual respect and collaboration with the intention of teaching the child basic life skills.

The pedagogical framework that support Positive Discipline are the following:

  • Being kind and firm at the same time (respectful and motivating).
  • Help children feel important (adult-child connection before correction).
  • Teach valuable life skills (respect, problem-solving skills, participation, responsibility…).
  • Learn from the logical and natural consequences of their actions.
  • Help children develop their abilities and be aware of them.
  • Do not include physical punishment, threaten or manipulation.
  • Be effective in the long term in different social contexts.

Conscious Discipline:

A transformational Social Emotional Learning and classroom management program created by Dr. Becky Bailey. A self-regulation program based on neuroscience, child development research and psychology. Conscious Discipline teaches adults to foster safety and connection, unleashing the ability to learn and problem solve. Both children and adults learn to manage their thoughts, feelings and behaviour, empowering them to achieve their goals. (https://consciousdiscipline.com/)

The seven skills of this discipline are the only skills we need to be able to transform everyday conflicts into learning moments. These moments give us the opportunity to teach our students the social-emotional and communication skills necessary to manage themselves, resolve conflict, prevent bullying and develop proactive and social behaviours.

The seven skills that are developed within this vision are:

  • Composure.
  • Courage.
  • Assertiveness.
  • Choices.
  • Empathy.
  • Positive intention.
  • Consequences of each action.

Democratic education:

Democratic education is known as that model and idea of teaching that is given to all equally. Other definitions bring the notion that it is an innovative teaching method based on democracy as a plan of instruction.

It is characterized by trying to include values such as justice, equity, trust, respect and self-determination for those who learn from it.

Democratic education is presented as a new approach in the way of conceiving the education and its structure. As it is based on respect behalf of children, teenagers and children, it has the following characteristics:

  • Active participation of all the components that make up educational systems: teachers, community, students, representatives and administrative staff.
  • The exchange of ideas among students is encouraged so that they can express their interests. The teacher serves as a facilitator of knowledge and a guide when there is a lack of understanding.
  • Democratic education encourages student responsibility for their own emotional involvement.
  • It dispenses with assessments, as it does not focus on grading the learner but on determining achievement.

These objectives have been focused on the following precepts:

  • Stimulate students’ personal interest in social relationships and help them overcome various drawbacks.
  • To maintain social control.
  • Learning to develop essential skills and abilities to reach agreements through procedures that endorse and maintain respect for one’s fellow citizens.

Undoubtedly, they are systems that defend equality and social participation. Systems that seek belonging to the entire educational community in order to generate a harmonious environment where children, workers and families feel an important part of it.