Today's children need social and emotional skills. Their capacity to achieve goals, work effectively with others, and manage emotions is essential to meet the challenges of the 21st century. People acquire 70% of all behaviors they have acquired during their lifetime at the age of 0-6. In this period when the development is very fast, the child is very sensitive to the events around him. Family is the child's first teacher and the school. It is seen that 68% of the children leave their families for the first time duringt the school adaptation period. Anxiety and stress levels of children reach very high levels during the school starting processes. 27% of children start school education with the social and emotional problems created by families or disadvantages(Elias 2008). In addition, the proliferation of digital technology areas and the fact that these areas become an indispensable part of children's daily lives, the gradual decrease of outdoor playgrounds cause negative effects on children. Meta-analysis conducted on 213 studies and covering 270.000 students shows that the educational programs prepared to develop students' social and emotional learning skills increase their academic success by 11% as well as improving their social and emotional competences (Durlak2011). On the other hand, lack of social and emotional skills or lack of development of these skills have been associated with negative results such as poor academic performance, increase in school dropout rate, absenteeism, discipline problems (Greenberg 2003). SESDECE project provides a program by integrating stories and games that will develop social and emotional skills under the roof of creative drama method in the adaptation process of children to prevent social and emotional problems; It is aimed to provide cooperation between School-Family-Parents by creating guideline programs for School, Family and Teachers. There are 1 University and 4 practice schools within the project under the coordination of Yıldırım District National Education. These practice schools have 1000 new students every year and together with their parents, they form a target audience of 3000 people in total. Partner schools undergo adaptation processes with new students and new families in each new education period. 3 LTT Activities and 2 TPM meetings were planned to create the school adaptation program. Both teachers and school psychologists/counselors were included in these meetings.64 people will participate in LTTs and 30 people in TPMs. Teachers in schools will support and disseminate all the implementations of the project. The project is divided into "Preparation, Project activities, Dissemination, Evaluation, Review of all results and Reporting" stages for 24 months. Teachers will be provided with 60 hours of Creative Drama Training by Uludağ University and will be specialized on 'Dramatic Storytelling'. Under the guidance and leadership of the university, Social and Emotional Problems will be identified and stories will be selected to transform these problems into positive skills. The selected stories will be turned into skill workshops with the Creative Drama method. In these workshops, guidebooks for both teachers and families will be created. Guidance books for these stakeholders will be created by providing trainings for the Emotion Friendly Teacher / Family / School concept. Draft books will be held at the Teacher / Family / School TPM meetings regarding the school adaptation process, final designs will be made according to the evaluation and result surveys applied in schools. The outputs of the project will be shared with open access. The impact of the project on the target group students is to adapt to the school easily and eliminate the anxiety and fears they feel towards the school. In addition, it is to ensure that they are successful individuals in both academic and life development, who are confident by preventing possible social and emotional problems, who have developed communication skills, can empathize, express their feelings correctly, have a respectful and sharing attitude towards their friends. The impact of the project on target group teachers is that they will specialize in creative drama and social / emotional skills and develop their professional competencies. The impact of the project on general goals is to support the creation of happy children, happy families, happy schools and happy societies. The best way to prepare a child for life is to have optimal social, emotional and learning experiences and environments, both in school and in family settings and services.In order to achieve academic success, the project provides a good start and school adaptation environment. It facilitates integration with children, parents, teachers and schools by preparing them for this transition
- Minimizing anxiety in children by developing social and emotional skills, encouraging positive attitudes, creating a school atmosphere that stimulates the excitement of learning, - Teaching a new training method to teachers and supporting their application of this method inside and outside the school, and increasing their professional development. - To improve the quality of the school integration process
The proliferation of digital technology usage areas, screen addiction and the increase in the time spent on technological devices and the gradual decrease in outdoor playgrounds have a negative impact on the social and emotional development of children and cause problems such as social adaptation, school attendance and academic success. The increase in these problems has revealed different difficulties on the school, family, teachers and children in the school starting period. - To reveal the framework of the problems and difficulties experienced by children during the adaptation period to school, to take measures against the problems and difficulties that arise, to develop positive social and emotional skills in children. - To make educators realize the importance of social and emotional development in early childhood and integrate games and children's books with drama methods to ensure their professional development. - To observe the different adaptation processes carried out in the partner schools, to organize the adaptation processes to the school and to support all stakeholders (families, students and educators)