Social Emotional Learning At KYMS

Research has shown that success after graduation is far more highly correlated to one's social intelligence than one's academic accomplishments. By intimately linking the academic, social, emotional, and spiritual, we believe we will shape students who are more prepared to tackle the many real-life challenges they will face in their future education, careers, and families.

Our Social Emotional Program consists of three unique parts with related purposes: 

• Advisory - In advisory, small groups of grade level students meet with a faculty advisor on a weekly basis. The goal of advisory is for students to build relationships with a trusted adult who can help them to solve problems, create safe space to bring up dilemmas that happen in and out of school, and learn skills for how to approach social and school based situations. Lastly, the advisory program creates small communities within our larger community- to hopefully facilitate these communities supporting each other and communicating with each other in a healthy way. Advisory includes:
• Programming such as Big Brother/ Big Sister, Shabbatons, Color War, Purim Carnival, SGO
• Lifnei Vlifnim: The Lifnei Vlifnim program helps develop the spiritual inner world of students and adults through deepening connection by transforming relationships with yourself, others, community, Torah and God.  
• Grade level specific coaching: Supports 6th grade students in making the transition to Middle School by helping them adjust to a new school, classmates, expectations, schedule, curriculum, and other new experiences.  Supports 8th grade students in their anticipated transition to High School by preparing them to adjust to a new community with different expectations, rituals, and routines.
• SS & LS (Study Skills and Life Skills)
• Weekly, students meet to work on study skills (SS) or life skills (LS). Students rotate in and out of these two groups.  
• Study skills include but is not limited to: Executive Functioning/ Organization skills such as using a planner, long term planning, juggling of work load.  Study strategies for preparing for assessments.  Student skills such as notetaking, advocating for oneself, working collaboratively.  
• Life skills includes but is not limited to:  media literacy, anti-semitism, racism, inclusion, bully prevention, civil discourse
• Mechanechet and Mashgiach Ruchani 
• Goal is to enhance the environment of religious inspiration and growth in the MS through the experience of community events with the Mechanechet and Mashgiach Ruchani. The Mechanechet and Mashgiach Ruchani in KY Middle School look to create an environment of increased social and religious integration for our MS students. The Mechanechet and Mashgiach Ruchani run social and religious events both in school and in their homes to help create a cohesive social and religious climate amongst our MS students. Events such as team-building bonding trips, Chessed-oriented activities around the Chagim, beginning and end of year and barbecues, bring students closer to one another, and foster informal relationships between students and their Mechanechet/ Mashgiach Ruchani. 

Taken as a whole, these learning experiences ensure that our students are supported in their transition from childhood to adolescence with a curriculum that promotes academic organization, problem-solving, and social-emotional exploration and regulation.