The staff and students at Blair have been on a Social/Emotional Learning journey for the last three years.  The staff and students have been examining: what social and emotional competencies, supports, and environments do our learners need to help them thrive and learn in school and in life?

As a follow up from last year's Inquiry Grant and School Story work, Blair staff asked learners the following questions: What are some Blair Care Strategies that you use? How do they help you to learn? What did you learn [about SEL] while in the Studio?  From this, we learned that many students are able to name SEL strategies that they learned through explicit teaching as well as have some understanding as to why they are important. This led us to wonder how might a focus on better understanding our identity and ourselves have an impact on how learners practice aspects of the Blair Cares framework, particularly in the areas of Care for Self and Others?  Beginning with the 2023-2024 school year, our staff have met and discussed our next steps in this SEL journey.

We are now wondering:

How might we support learners in developing an understanding of their identity? 

How might a stronger sense of identity help to foster a sense of belonging at Blair, and thus support students in their learning? 

Do all students feel connected to the adults at Blair, and feel safe and welcome in the community?

Our goal is to support learners to gain a stronger sense of their self identity, their personal story.  Making a difference for learners as a result of our inquiry means that children have a better understanding of themselves and others, and we hope that this would lend itself to an authentic sense of belonging in classrooms and our school community.

Therefore, our inquiry into helping students develop an understanding of identity and gaining a stronger sense of self-identity would support children in developing an authentic understanding of how and why they might ''Care for Self'' and ''Care for Others''.