The Creating Space Project helps schools deliver authentic Social and Emotional Learning programs through the cross-curriculum priority of Sustainability and numerous general capabilities.

Sustainability:

•  A cross-curriculum priority for NSW schools
• “More sustainable patterns of living are largely shaped by people’s behaviours” (cf. NSW Education Standards Authority)
• People’s behaviours are shaped, in part, by an awareness of their own values and their relationships with people and the environment around them.

Aims:

The Creating Space Project offers Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) workshops that target the general capabilities required for students to develop into citizens who seek to transform society into one that is both socially and ecologically sustainable.

The workshops target critical and creative thinking, ethical understanding, intercultural understanding, and personal and social capability. The workshops also enable students to learn and reflect on their own learning, through the development of metacognitive awareness.

Fostering a kind and compassionate stance towards oneself, towards others, and towards creation is the foundation of Creating Space Project programs.

To foster sustainability, young people need the chance to purposefully develop a balance of

• pro-social emotions, including empathy, that allow a compassionate sense of perspective-taking;
• scepticism, a capacity to wonder and think critically about the truth of information. 

The ability to synthesise both these emotional and cognitive skills allows for ethical decision-making based on the long-term wellbeing of environment and people.