Student Support & SEAD
Overview
Gaining the skills, strategies, tools, and mindset to be successful at school often hinges on the relationship between emotions and academics. The SEAD (Social Emotional Academic Development) program at Chartwell provides students with explicit, systematic, and multimodal instruction to better understand the relationship between their emotions and behaviors. Learning more about this relationship gives students tangible methods to regulate themselves and better understand others, which leads to a learning environment where students can successfully attend to lessons and activities. Similarly, the SEAD program, which is based on CASEL’s 5 competencies, provides students with the skills, strategies, tools, and mindset needed to be successful in less structured environments such as lunch or recess. Each student’s emotional well-being is a priority at Chartwell.
In general, Chartwell School’s philosophy is that a structured, caring environment contributes most effectively to the growth of our students. Chartwell’s program strives to ensure student emotional, physical, and psychological well-being by establishing and maintaining a positive school environment.
In order to secure each student's Social Emotional Academic Development, we create opportunities to celebrate students’ strengths, efforts, achievements, and individuality. We have a PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) and restorative practice approach that, when combined with the SEAD curriculum specifically designed to meet students at their developmental level, are pivotal in students’ feeling comfortable, learning more about themselves and others, as well as learning how to work through unwanted feelings.
At Chartwell, every student is viewed uniquely. Students vary developmentally and in unique ways regarding socialization, and often must be taught how to understand and apply expectations in much the same way that they benefit from direct instruction in academic areas.
These expectations are intended to serve as guidelines for responsible social and academic behavior. When the expectations are in conflict with the best interest of the individual or school community, they will be adjusted by school staff to achieve the most meaningful outcome. We call this approach “structured flexibility,” a balanced and practical reflection of the real world. It promotes connection, advocacy, and furthers our ability to meet students where they are developmentally while upholding our expectations.
We explicitly teach students how to meet expectations and provide praise and immediate feedback when they exhibit behaviors that show the type of character needed to maintain a community and culture of inclusivity, empathy, respect, and responsibility.
Discipline at Chartwell is a process that is educational by nature. It aims to help those involved understand why a behavior occurred and provide them with time to reflect on the behavior, resolve hurt feelings, restore trust, and gain an improved ability to act as a positive contributing member of our community. It is our belief that any student at Chartwell has the ability, regardless of their learning profile, learning style, strengths, or weaknesses, to meet the expectations. Therefore, the discipline procedure is individualized, taking into account each student’s social-emotional development, diagnosis, and personal situation.
Each member of the Chartwell community continually aims to provide students with a safe environment where they are able to build on their strengths, develop their stretches, make meaningful relationships, build their self-esteem and confidence, and be academically successful.
Billy Swift, Director of Student Support
