Woodward was happy to welcome our local SEL expert, Connie Easton, to facilitate a day of inquiry and exploration of trauma-informed classrooms and social-emotional learning.

During our day together, we looked at our identity and applied it to how different identities in the classroom create different communities of learning. To create a strong community of learning, we need to help our students feel like they belong and not just fit in. To belong, we need to be able to share our own personal identities an connect with others.

We also explored how trauma affects ourselves and our learners. Trauma can come from many different experiences and manifest in many ways. As aa school we look to build strong, connected relationships with our students, provide consistent and clear structure, and shape our teaching to respond to trauma.

As a staff, it is important to us that students are self-aware, safe, open to learning, and can manage their emotions. To create these skills, our staff investigated strategies to greet our students, get to know them, grow their skills, give them a push when needed and strengthen them.

Parts of the day, teachers and staff explored their classrooms and were able to connect common threads through our general school. To finish the day, our school worked towards creating welcoming activities for our classrooms and school in September. We believe that coming together and connecting with each other at the beginning of the year will help our students feel like they belong, are safe, and are supported.

We look forward to continuing our journey together and sharing more activities and support with our students in 2022-2023.