YCDI Primary Program

Darul Ulum College of Victoria recognises the importance of developing well rounded individuals who are socially and emotionally competent. The College has incorporated a social and emotional learning program known as ‘You Can Do It’ (YCDI) as part of its curriculum to give students the opportunity to gain intra and interpersonal skills. This is consistent with the national Australian Curriculum that identifies personal and social capabilities as essential for 21st-century learners.

YCDI’s main purpose is to support communities, schools, and homes in a collective effort to optimise the social, emotional, and academic outcomes of all young people. Its unique contribution is in identifying the social and emotional capabilities that all young people need to acquire in order to be successful in school, experience wellbeing, and have positive relationships including making contributions to others and the community. The focus is on building positive student capacity. There are high expectations for achievement and behaviour; involving young people in decision-making and providing them with special responsibility, and most importantly, communicating and modeling of social and emotional capabilities by school staff and families at home, including values and resilience.

These are 5 YCDI keys that are the foundations of the YCDI program:

These capabilities are considered essential for students to experience social, emotional and academic success at school and beyond. The YCDI program gives students the opportunity to develop strategies and skills that support a positive sense of self and respectful relationships with others by educating them about the positive habits of mind.

Darul Ulum College incorporates a range of strategies in order to implement whole-school approach to social and emotional learning including:

  • timetabling the YCDI program for all Year F-6 and 7-10 classes once a week;
  • building teacher capacity to promote and explicitly teach students about social and emotional competencies;
  • highlighting the connection of Islamic values and perspectives to the social and emotional competencies being taught;
  • integrating other subjects such as English, Tarbiyah, Art, Humanities and ICT into the themes of the YCDI program;
  • supporting national and Australian celebrations that complement YCDI values, such as Harmony Day, Teacher Day, Clean Up Australia Day, etc.;
  • conducting student presentation competitions on the themes of YCDI on a termly basis that align with Islamic values and practices;
  • giving students the opportunity to practice responses to realistic scenarios using role plays, speeches, story and literature so that students can discuss YCDI keys in depth – not only with their own class members but also with other students across other year levels;
  • using child friendly props with the younger students such as puppets, games, picture books, Big Books, school approved videos, etc.; and
  • incursions that focus on a variety of themes and skills, such as teamwork, building trust, anti-bullying, problem solving, how to be a good friend, empathy, respect, etc.

Through a variety of classroom resources, inviting guest speakers and other interactive and engaging learning activities such as cooperative games, problem solving and reflective activities; students are encouraged to identify and understand their emotions, consider the perspectives of others and make well-reasoned decisions.

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