Social-emotional learning is embedded into the curriculum as well as the overall school culture, providing students with the resources and support to guide and empower them through their middle school years and beyond. The single-gender context is a pivotal element of girls’ social-emotional learning. Girls’ schools empower girls to find their voices and learn how to use them, and inspire girls to imagine and explore novel possibilities for their lives and futures. As a result, graduates of girls’ schools are more likely to pursue STEM careers and leadership positions. Students develop, affirm and support their social-emotional learning through four main activities: 

GALS Series
Girls tap into their social-emotional learning and well-being through the GALS Series. The course meets daily and is taught by a full-time trained instructor. Its workshop style provides a formal learning space focused on six themes: Voice, Relationships, Mindfulness, Health and Wellness (including Sexual Health), Goal Setting/Intention, and Identity. Students reflect on their personal growth through journaling, project-based learning tasks and performances, personal statements and self-efficacy surveys, all documented in their personal journal. GALS Series Overview

GALS Pledge
The GALS Student Pledge is made up of positive affirmations that capture the essence of what makes GALS a unique place to learn and grow. Students and staff recite the pledge each morning after a school-wide morning workout. Affirmations support students (and staff) in developing and maintaining a positive, healthy, responsible mindset and self-image. The Pledge is also a living document that is integrated into the school community to reinforce positive behaviors and redirect negative ones, via restorative justice practices, and in student self-reflection. GALS Mission & Student Pledge

School-Based Counseling
Most adolescents do not yet know who they are, and many do not feel that they matter. School-based mental health teams offer a range of services from wellness and prevention to supporting students with the short-term problems of growing up to more intensive support including crisis intervention as well as responding to family challenges and emerging mental health issues that may require outside referral. Students may be referred to counseling services by their parents, as recommended by a teacher, or request it for themselves. 

In keeping with the movement focus, the director and lead counselor are dance/movement therapists, incorporating a trauma-informed, somatic approach to counseling. As part of the Whole-Bodied Model, students work on self-awareness and creative expression to explore their emerging identities. They learn what feels good and what does not, how to set boundaries when necessary, and how to best take care of themselves physically and emotionally.

Wellness Teams
Wellness Teams also play an important role in students’ social-emotional learning. Students in every grade are part of an 18–20 student advisory group (called “Wellness Team”) that explores the issues directly relevant to female adolescent development and ensures that every student is known well by an adult (called a “Wellness Coach”) and a group of peers in the school. All core teachers serve as Wellness Coaches. Wellness teams meet daily at the beginning of each day as well as when scheduled during weekly community meetings. Wellness coaches keep track of student academic and social progress and serve as powerful mentors and resources for their students. Wellness coaches are the main point of contact with families on student academic and social well-being. They communicate with GALS administration and GALS teachers to ensure that GALS faculty are able to support students with both academics and social-emotional realities. Wellness teams also play a critical role in the movement-based learning experience for students.

Movement optimizes learning potential, boosts cognition and memory, and ignites a positive self-image in students. Students witness their capacity for growth and strength in movement, which translates powerfully in the classroom. Kinesthetic learning is infused throughout the school day to enhance daily lessons. Movement is incorporated in a range of ways throughout the day to facilitate learning. 

Movement Module
The Movement Module is an important component of the GALS model. Four days a week, all students and teachers begin their day with movement via the “Morning Movement” block. The timing is intentional. Developing minds are not most alert at 8:30am, and this block helps awaken learners and prepare them for the day ahead. The goal is to raise the heart rate to 40–80% of its capacity for 20 minutes or more as it creates a window of learning. 

The class is 40 minutes in duration and designed to support and challenge students to push themselves physically. These activities are adapted for students with physical disabilities. Students experience a range of morning movement classes over the course of the year as determined by space and weather. Classes include running, cycling, circuit training, dance, and yoga. Participation in all classes can be modified or adapted for students with special needs. Students rotate through different athletic modules which include running, yoga, self-defense, team games, sports, and more. The single-gendered context of the school ensures that girls are able to move freely and develop compassion for themselves and others through movement.  GALS Denver

Active Pedagogy
Active Pedagogy is at the center of the Whole-Bodied Model. It is based on the positive correlation between physical activity, cognition, social-emotional awareness, and neuro-developmental growth. By not only starting each day with movement, but also infusing movement throughout the entirety of the school day, GALS emphasizes the importance of

holistic, kinesthetic, mind-body awareness and its positive effect on social, emotional, and academic success. Students and staff engage their bodies in service to their brains. The GALS Whole-Bodied Model does this using three primary strategies during academic classes that vary in length: 

1. Brain Boosts: These range from 3–5 minutes in duration and give students the opportunity to re-engage, wake up their brain, or prepare for a lesson transition. Brain boosts can be small, motor-skill activities or larger, more dynamic activities involving full-body movement. Most of these activities can take place in the classroom or the hallway. An example of this is One-song Workouts, where different cardio activities, such as jumping jacks, burpees, and squats are repeated for the length of one song played on classroom speakers.
2. Delivering Content through Movement: Delivering content, or checking for understanding, through movement typically takes around 10 minutes and entails teacher-guided classroom activities that allow students to move in order to learn. This is applicable across all content areas and is a strong pedagogical technique for delivering or reviewing content. In Movement Multiple Choice, students demonstrate their selection from a multiple choice review through the associated movement. For example, answer A = 3 squats, answer B = tree pose, answer C = 3 high knees.
3. Enhancing Content through Movement: This activity involves instructional strategies lasting 20 minutes, where content is delivered primarily through full-body investment in an activity. These movement activities lend themselves to deepening student understanding of the material and are often content-specific. Students with a 504 plan or with disabilities will be accommodated. One activity is Human Numberline/Human Grid, where a math teacher lays a number line or coordinate graph on the floor using painter’s tape or other material. Students represent points or algebraic transformations through moving their bodies from one coordinate to another.

These strategies enable students to move their bodies as a way to re-engage, learn or deepen understanding of different content, and across contexts.