Delivering health education: the contribution of social and emotional learning

The purpose of this paper is to outline the contribution of school‐based programmes of social and emotional learning (SEL) to health education, and outline a recent initiative by the English government, “Secondary SEAL”.

The paper presents evidence for the impact of SEL programmes, and accounts the key principles of the English SEAL programme.

The paper finds that SEL programmes impact on learning, behaviour, emotional and social wellbeing and physical health, provided that they follow certain key principles.

The paper shows, that for the first time, the English Secondary SEAL programme has been outlined in an international journal.