How a bunch of 8-year-old kids wanting to ‘watch Josh’ launched a new kind of social emotional learning program for primary schools

How a bunch of 8-year-old kids wanting to ‘watch Josh’ launched a new kind of social emotional learning program for primary schools.

Last year, I’d noticed a school had purchased the original Here I am! program and Being You is Enough Book series and thought, that’s interesting and soon forgot about it as I wasn’t planning on going into the education sector.

Then I saw a teacher at the school posted something on Instagram about how amazing it was. I messaged her and we ended up have a chat on the phone.

I found out her name was Shannon.

Shannon explained that her school, Josiah College on the Gold Coast was a specialist Autism school, and her year 4 class would insist on ‘watching Josh’ and then said something that stopped me in my tracks.

‘I love how it’s such a simple SEL program. It’s good that I can include some SEL content at the end of the day and it only takes less than half an hour and the kids love it.”

I had to ask her what SEL was.

I found out it was Social Emotional Learning, and all schools have to include it as part of the curriculum. While there are lots of programs already on the market, Shannon said that mine was very different, and that teachers and kids would really benefit from its simplicity.

So, with Shannon’s guidance and consulting with other teachers, I made a few adjustments and relaunched the program as Inspiring Kids School SEL Edition.

To say thank you to Shannon, I did special Zoom incursion to meet the students of Josiah College and answer all their questions.

So what makes the Inspiring Kids SEL so different?

Key benefit for teachers and schools:

• Play and activate.
• No training required.
• Little preparation time.
• Simply play the short video to the whole class via the Smart TV or Interactive Whiteboard and complete the activity.
• Short lessons (only 10 to 20 minutes).
• Fits into the Australian Health and Wellbeing Curriculum.
• Comes with complete lesson planner, activity suggestions and conversation starters.
• Can complement existing SEL programs or be used as a standalone program.

Key Benefit for students:

• Short visually engaging videos.
• Short fun, simple writing or drawing activities.
• Key messages delivered in a clear easy to understand manner for any comprehension level including those with ASD or learning difficulties.
• No new terms, language, or frameworks to learn, understand or unpack.
• Students will look forward to ‘time with Josh’!
• Includes letter for parents to know more about the program.
• Inspiring Kids Home Edition is available to reinforce generalised learning of the curriculum.

With a bunch of primary schools already signed up, I’m planning to have 20 schools by the end of the year so I can have Inspiring Kids School SEL edition part of the Be You resource directory.

To book a 20 minute free demonstration of Inspiring Kids SEL Edition for your primary school, contact me on my contact page