Foundations for Flourishing: Practical Strategies to Foster Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and Relational Teaching in Primary Education

This two-day workshop empowers primary school teachers with practical skills and research-based frameworks to promote social-emotional development in children aged 7–12. Grounded in current research on teacher-child relationships, classroom climate and key social-emotional learning (SEL) approaches, participants will explore how SEL competencies evolve across developmental stages and how to design, adapt, and implement progressive SEL strategies within the primary school years. Through interactive activities on emotional awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social awareness, teachers will gain hands-on strategies for classroom integration. Collaborative action planning ensures that all participants leave equipped to foster nurturing, emotionally supportive learning environments and to guide students through incremental SEL skill-building across the primary years.

Workshop Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Understand the critical role of teacher-child relationships in fostering social-emotional growth
• Build capacity to support student self-regulation and coping strategies through evidence-based classroom practices.
• Gain practical strategies for teaching emotional awareness, recognition, and vocabulary
• Advance social awareness, empathy, and perspective-taking through structured classroom activities.
• Develop an understanding of how social emotional learning (SEL) evolves across developmental stages, and gain the skills to design, adapt, and implement an aligned SEL scope and sequence for students aged 7–12, ensuring targeted, continuous, and progressive SEL skill-building throughout the primary years.

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Target Audience:

• Special Education Needs Officers in Primary Schools
• Any primary school teachers interested to learn more about how to support students with communication needs