Student Support at Windward

Progressing Academically, Growing Socially and Emotionally

By Stephanie Huie, Associate Director of Digital Communications & Publications

At The Windward School, social and emotional learning is not simply a curriculum that Windward adds along with our academic and extra-curricular programs. Windward recognizes that social and emotional learning is the foundation of our program. Just as The Windward School infuses rich language instruction in all classes and activities, our students are developing their social and emotional learning with every message and every interaction they have at Windward. It is our intention to offer models of prosocial behaviors and engage students in opportunities that allow them to experience and practice our core values for interpersonal conduct as well as for their own development as individuals.

Within the framework of a very academically focused school, we care deeply about social and emotional wellness.

Students attend The Windward School to receive Windward’s specialized instruction and proven educational program to remediate their language-based learning disabilities in order to return to a mainstream education environment. Windward’s goal is to provide a successful school experience, and, at the same time, to build students’ self-esteem and confidence. A challenge for lower and middle school students at any school is the acquisition of social and emotional competencies that will allow them to properly read social interactions and express their own thoughts and feelings through speech. With Windward’s research-based, multisensory curriculum combined with a thoughtfully structured support system to guide them socially and emotionally, students at Windward are given the skills necessary to read with confidence, write with purpose, and to lead lives of fulfillment and accomplishment.

“Within the framework of a very academically focused school, we care deeply about social and emotional wellness,” says Ms. Julie Liebman, Dean of Student Support at Westchester Middle School, who also serves as the guidance counselor in grade 5. “The student support team of guidance counselors and psychologists—as well as all the adults on each campus—cares about the whole child. We want our students to develop self-confidence and self-advocacy skills, which we hope they will carry with them to their next schools and beyond. I hope all our kids learn to not only feel comfortable with their learning challenges but also appreciate their uniqueness.”

In one lesson with Ms. Fulco, fifth graders at Manhattan Middle School discussed ways they could help prevent rumors and gossip from spreading in the school community. The students reflected on why rumors start and how the subjects of those rumors might feel.

Why is Social and Emotional Well-being so Important for Children, Especially Those at Windward?

While most certainly not every student’s experience, many students arrive at Windward with lowered self-esteem and even an aversion to school as a result of experiencing severe struggles in the classroom. Furthermore, outside of the classroom, language-based learning disabilities can impact social dynamics for students. According to the student support team, communication can be a challenge for many students with dyslexia, including common issues such as misunderstood peer interactions, misinterpreted conversation meanings, misread tone and facial cues, and difficulties expressing oneself clearly. The combination of academic and social stress along with frustrations in properly articulating one’s thoughts and feelings creates barriers at school for dyslexic students and has the potential to negatively impact their wellbeing.

At Windward, reversing this attitude of discouragement and promoting a nurturing culture of support is of the utmost importance to the entire team supporting each student. By helping students regain confidence in themselves, the guidance counselors, psychologists, teachers, and administrators foster an environment where children can reach their full academic potential.

The Windward School’s mission statement reads, in part, “Academic success, combined with opportunities for social and emotional growth within an intentionally diverse and inclusive setting, enables students to understand their learning differences, build confidence, and develop self-advocacy skills.” Citing this, Ms. Liebman emphasizes that students cannot progress academically if they are not progressing emotionally. The warm and inviting community of teachers and peers understand that every student at Windward shares similarities in how they learn. This recognition eases the stress and pressure of being dyslexic and instead enables students to focus their energies on their academic studies and on developing positive social relationships.

During the Westchester Middle School monthly community meetings, the guidance counselors acknowledge students who were "caught being kind." Any adult in the building can share a moment in which they witnessed a student performing a random act of kindness.

How Does the Windward Student Support Team Promote Wellness?

The primary objectives for the guidance counselors and psychologists are to help students:

• Learn the correct vocabulary so they can express themselves

• Understand how to identify and manage their emotions

• Encourage positive coping skills

• Develop friendships and navigate social situations, including through conflict resolution

• Understand how they learn with a language-based learning disability

• Develop empathy for others

• Learn how to advocate for themselves

• Boost their self-confidence and build self-esteem

• Succeed socially and academically in a mainstream environment

The team works towards their goals through four main methods: collaborating with faculty, families, administrators, and external providers (psychotherapists, neurologists, etc.); providing short-term, solution-based counseling for students; developing the lower school social skills curriculum; and teaching group guidance lessons in middle school.

In our work, it’s sometimes hard to see the progress from day to day. But when you look at the big picture and watch how a student has blossomed into a whole child, it is so gratifying. It’s the reason why we do what we do. When you see a child who at the beginning of the year had no self-esteem and was so insecure to then be filled with great confidence by the end of the year, it is an amazing thing. Our students are here at Windward for the academics, and we see their character evolve most effectively when Windward and families partner together to support our students’ social and emotional growth.”