Reading Writing Arithmetic - are the essentials of academic learning. But children need so much more to lead wholesome, well-adjusted lives! Learning to name a feeling, calm a temper, make a friend, notice when someone is 'left out'. Our work is built on The Teacher Foundation's Indian Social Emotional Learning Framework (ISELF) - the only research-based age-banded SEL framework developed for Indian children. It maps the 5 core SEL competencies across 5 age-bands from 6-18 years. ISELF has also been mapped by Harvard University's EASEL Lab.
ISELF was researched and developed by The Teacher Foundation, Bangalore, and published in 2019 under a Creative Commons licence.
Each competency has 2–3 learning standards, each standard has learning outcomes tuned to the child's age, and each outcome comes with practical classroom opportunities.
Social and emotional learning is sometimes dismissed as the nice-to-have that comes after the syllabus is finished. Research says otherwise: it improves the syllabus outcomes too.
Greater motivation to learn, deeper commitment to school, more time devoted to schoolwork and better classroom behaviour.
SEL strengthens the executive functions behind inhibitory control, planning and switching attention — the machinery of self-regulation.
Students are less aggressive and disruptive. A child who learns to voice anger appropriately is spared the damage of acting it out.
Children get along better with peers, teachers and parents — as reported by all three, and by independent observers.
Benefits adapted from CASEL research, as cited in ISELF (2019). Study figures from The Teacher Foundation's nation-wide research across 15 locations, 2012–2017.
It is the process of acquiring a set of social and emotional skills — self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making — in a safe, supportive environment that encourages social, emotional and cognitive development, and gives children real chances to practise those skills.
A child who cannot name what she feels will struggle to manage it. A child who cannot manage her feelings will struggle to hold a friendship. The competencies stack — self-knowledge first, then the wider world, then the judgement to act well in it.
Recognising one's feelings and how they shape decisions and behaviour. Accepting oneself as a unique person, taking pride in one's skills and talents, and assessing strengths and weaknesses honestly.
Expressing emotions appropriately, dealing with upsetting situations in healthy ways, finding sources of help, and setting goals and working towards them in an organised manner.
Forming and sustaining healthy relationships with diverse people. Clear, timely, assertive communication; expressing authentic views; resisting inappropriate pressure; resolving conflict fairly.
Working well with people of different religion, caste, gender, ethnicity and economic background. Empathising with practices unlike one's own, and taking action on social problems.
Making constructive choices about behaviour, health, relationships and career — weighing social, ethical and safety norms, examining consequences, and respecting one's own and others' rights.
There is a temptation to treat all children alike. But a seven-year-old learning to name “angry” and a seventeen-year-old learning to sit with conflicting emotions are doing very different work. ISELF sets out what a child should be able to do by the end of each age band.
6–8 years. The foundations. Children learn that feelings have names, that feelings change through the day, and that how they behave affects the people around them.
Learning outcomes shown are one example per competency per age band, drawn from ISELF (2019). The full framework sets out multiple outcomes and dozens of learning opportunities for each.
A framework is only useful if a teacher can act on it before the bell rings. ISELF narrows from competency to concrete classroom opportunity in four steps.
No school needs to choose only one. Most begin with whichever fits the timetable they already have, and widen from there.
Social-emotional skills developed while teaching Science, History, Maths, languages, sport or theatre. A group Physics experiment can be designed to build collaboration, problem solving and decision making alongside the concepts — then followed by reflective questions that make the learning visible.
A weekly period across Grades 1 to 12 for planned, structured sessions — art, storytelling, role-play, discussion — built around a specific social-emotional behaviour appropriate to the age group.
Dedicated days set aside to address a persistent, worrying issue — bullying, peer pressure — in depth, working back to its origin rather than its symptoms. Best used alongside a regular programme, not instead of one.
The most ambitious: a needs audit, staff training, timetabled sessions, sessions involving parents and the wider community, and changes to the school's own policies, spaces and systems — so that the change outlasts any one enthusiastic teacher.
Effective approaches share four features, known by the acronym SAFE.
A step-by-step set of activities that build on each other, not a scatter of one-off sessions.
Active forms of learning — role-play, behavioural rehearsal — so students practise, not just hear about, the skills.
Sufficient time devoted exclusively to developing social and emotional skills.
Specific skills named and targeted, rather than hoped for as a by-product.
Source: CASEL (2003), as cited in ISELF.
“Schools must pay attention to the ‘heart of learning’ — that is, the social and emotional aspects.”Dr. Renu Singh, Country Director, Young Lives, University of Oxford — ISELF Advisory Council
A child spends far more hours with family than with any teacher. You do not need training or a curriculum — the framework simply names things many families already do, and suggests doing them on purpose. Grandparents in particular hold something schools cannot supply: unhurried time, and stories.
"You look frustrated" teaches more than "stop sulking". Children who can name an emotion are better able to manage it. Distinguish shades — irritated, angry, furious; pleased, joyful, elated.
Ask why a character felt as they did, and what you would have done. It is far easier for a child to examine a feeling at one remove before examining their own.
Real responsibility at home — a task that matters, done regularly — builds the sense of being useful that the framework calls contributing to the well-being of the family.
Children learn conflict resolution by watching adults disagree and mend it. Apologising in front of a child teaches more than any lesson on apologising.
Ask about the child in class nobody sits with. Empathy grows through attention paid to specific people, not through general instruction to be kind.
"What did you decide today, and why?" opens a conversation that "how was the test?" closes. Decision making improves when decisions are talked about out loud.
Whether you are a school head planning a whole-school programme, a teacher wanting one good activity for Monday, or a parent trying to help a struggling child — we can help you find the right first step.