Tier 1 Practices that Support Social & Emotional Learning

Social and emotional learning is not a separate program, lesson, or time of day. Within Tier 1, SEL is intentionally embedded into classroom instruction, relationships, routines, learning environments, and opportunities for students to develop and practice social and emotional competencies throughout the school day.

Strong Tier 1 SEL practices support all students in developing self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and intentional decision-making while strengthening belonging, engagement, agency, and access to learning.

Effective SEL is also developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive-sustaining, and responsive to student strengths, identities, experiences, and needs. Adults play an essential role by modeling these competencies and creating environments in which students can practice them authentically.

SEL BANK OF ACTIVITIES

New York State SEL Benchmarks

New York State's Social Emotional Learning Benchmarks provide a developmental framework for supporting social and emotional competencies from early elementary through high school, while also identifying competencies adults develop, practice, teach, and model.

Goal 1 — Self-Awareness & Self-Management

Develop self-awareness and self-management skills essential to success in school and in life.

Goal 2 — Social Awareness & Relationships

Use social awareness and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain positive relationships.

Goal 3 — Intentional Decision-Making

Demonstrate intentional decision-making skills and behaviors that consider social, emotional, and physical safety and well-being.

Mood Check-Ins to give your students

Five minute classroom breaks to boost mental health

SEL ≠ An Activity

SEL activities, lessons, games, videos, and resources can provide valuable opportunities to explicitly teach and practice social and emotional skills. They are tools—not the SEL system itself.

Strong Tier 1 SEL is embedded in how adults build relationships, design environments, respond to behavior, facilitate learning, support student voice, model social-emotional competencies, and create opportunities for students to practice skills throughout the school day.

SEL is something we teach, model, practice, reinforce, and experience—not simply something we do.

SEL + Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Practice

Social and emotional learning occurs within cultural, linguistic, relational, and social contexts. Effective SEL recognizes students' identities, languages, experiences, strengths, values, and ways of communicating as assets.

Educators should consider how culture, identity, power, bias, expectations, and context influence how social and emotional behaviors are expressed, interpreted, and responded to.

SEL should strengthen belonging and agency—not require students to conform to one culturally defined way of communicating, regulating, participating, or relating.

NYSED's CR-S Framework specifically calls for student-centered environments that affirm cultural identities, prepare students for rigor and independent learning, build connection across difference, elevate historically marginalized voices, and develop student agency.

💡 SEL Within MTSS

Within an integrated MTSS framework, Tier 1 SEL practices and supports are intentionally designed for all students. Universal practices establish the relational, instructional, and environmental conditions that support social-emotional development, belonging, engagement, and learning.

When students require additional support, teams use multiple sources of information to identify the specific skill, need, context, or barrier and determine whether supplemental Tier 2 or individualized Tier 3 support is warranted.

Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports are added to—not substituted for—strong Tier 1 SEL environments and practices.