GAIT
Movement-based SEL activities
GAIT (Grooming Artistic Innovation and Talent) is one of the brands under Fitkids Education and Training. This brand has been working with schools all around Bangalore for nearly a decade, introducing the fundamentals of movement, theatre and dance to children aged 4-10. Though the programs have been received very positively at the primary school level, at middle and senior school levels, schools look for more reportable outcomes and metrics from extracurriculars. The activities in the GAIT curriculum touch upon social and emotional learning outcomes, so for the higher grades, we decided to create a more structured curriculum that aligns with the Indian Social Emotional Learning Framework (iSELF). We partnered with The Teacher Foundation and created a basic curricular guideline for grades 6-9. We also designed 7 pilot sessions and conducted them in Insight Academy, a school in South Bangalore. The lovely team at TTF provided much-needed guidance, insight and feedback about the activities we conducted with the students.
The curriculum built on the 5 SEL competencies:
1. Self Awareness
2. Self Management
3.Social Awareness
4. Relationship Management
5. Responsible Decision Making
These are all built through movement and theatre-based group activities. The students are also given a workbook to reflect upon and build skills consistently throughout the length of the program (typically all year).
A sample of initial sketches of the workbook layout are alongside. These were developed by the excellent team of Winding Road Design.
