Learning target 1.2
Social Awareness & Empathy
Read others' emotional states and perspectives, respond to stated needs, and repair relationships after conflict.
T3Practised disposition
Orientations students grow into — practised over time, observed across contexts. Assessed by what they consistently do, not what they say.
Criteria — what growth looks like
Every learning target has a set of criteria specifying what growth looks like at each band. For this practised-disposition LT, each criterion lists what would be observed (and what would be confused with it) rather than rubric levels.
6 criteria across 6 bands.
Band A— Water + Air Dragons
K–2ages 5–7
A.1The student notices and names feelings in others, and offers a kind word or specific helpful action in response, without adult direction.
Observation indicators
- The student names a feeling another child is showing (sad, worried, left out) in their own words, not only their own feelings.
- The student offers a kind word or a specific helpful action (sitting with, inviting to play, sharing) in response, without adult direction.
- The student notices the emotion of a quieter or less visible child, not only children who are loudly upset.
Confusable behaviours
- Rule-following (reciting "use kind words") mistaken for empathic noticing. Distinction: empathic response is triggered by what the student sees in the other child; rule-following is triggered by an adult instruction or routine.
- Performative sweetness (being kind because it earns adult approval) mistaken for empathy. Distinction: empathic action usually happens without an audience watching.
Absence indicators
- When another child is visibly upset nearby, the student proceeds without apparent notice, even in small settings where the signal is clear.
- The student's kind actions are tightly tied to being observed by an adult — the behaviour drops when adult attention moves away.
Conversation prompts
- Tell me about a time this week when you noticed someone felt sad or worried. How did you know?
- Tell me about a time you made somebody feel better. What did you do?
- When you see someone on their own at break, what goes through your head?
Band B— Earth Dragons
G3–4ages 8–10
B.1The student takes a peer's perspective in their own words, asks before acting on assumption about what the peer needs, and accepts a "no" without pushing.
Observation indicators
- The student describes a situation from another person's perspective in their own words (not only restating what the other said).
- The student asks "do you want help?" (or an equivalent check-in) before acting on their assumption about what the other person needs.
- The student accepts a "no" or "I'm fine" from a peer without pushing, continuing to help anyway, or taking the refusal personally.
- The student spontaneously verifies rather than guesses when emotional signals are ambiguous, on multiple occasions.
Confusable behaviours
- Assuming and acting (bringing a peer something without asking because "I thought you'd want it") mistaken for empathic responsiveness. Distinction: the disposition shows in checking first, especially when the "help" would otherwise be directive.
- Ritualised asking ("do you want help?" as an automatic phrase) mistaken for genuine check-in. Distinction: the disposition includes actually listening to and acting on the answer.
Absence indicators
- The student defaults to their own interpretation of what a peer needs and is visibly surprised or upset when the peer's version differs.
- The student pushes past a "no" when it contradicts their picture of helping, or becomes hurt when help is declined.
Conversation prompts
- Tell me about a time someone felt differently than you expected about something — what did you learn?
- When is it easiest to ask how someone is feeling, and when is it hardest?
- Tell me about a time a friend said they were fine but you thought they weren't. What did you do?
Band C— Fire Dragons
G5–6ages 10–12
C.1The student attends to multiple group members during shared work, checks in directly when signals are unclear, and adjusts their own actions to match what the other has said they need.
Observation indicators
- The student attends to multiple members of a working group (not only the loudest or closest), tracking who is engaged, who is withdrawing, who is confused.
- The student checks in with a direct question when signals are unclear, rather than acting on assumption.
- The student adjusts their own actions to match what the other person has said they need, on multiple occasions.
- The student attends to what a peer is doing (withdrawn posture, silence, not participating) as well as to what they say, when reading emotional state.
Confusable behaviours
- Centring the most expressive peer (attending well to the person who says the most) mistaken for broad social awareness. Distinction: the disposition shows in attention to the quieter group members too.
- Checking-in-then-doing-what-I-was-going-to-do (ritual check-in followed by the student's own plan anyway) mistaken for responsive empathy. Distinction: the action actually shifts based on the answer.
Absence indicators
- In group work, the student consistently over-indexes on one or two peers and loses track of the others, without noticing the pattern.
- The student asks questions but proceeds without adjusting behaviour to the responses, indicating the asking is ritualised.
Conversation prompts
- When do you find it easiest to tell what a group member is feeling, and when do you find it hardest?
- Tell me about a time you adjusted what you were doing because of what someone else needed — what shifted?
- How do you know when someone in your group is fading out without saying so?
Band D— Metal + Light Dragons
G7–8ages 12–13
D.1After a conflict, the student listens without interrupting, names their own contribution to the situation, and proposes a next step that accounts for the other person's position as well as their own.
Observation indicators
- After a conflict, the student listens to the other party without interrupting, even when they disagree.
- The student names their own contribution to the conflict (what they did, said, or assumed) without only narrating the other person's faults.
- The student proposes a next step that accounts for the other person's position — not only a resolution that protects their own.
- The student treats repair as part of the relationship, not as an admission of being wholly at fault.
Confusable behaviours
- Apology performance ("I said sorry") mistaken for repair. Distinction: repair includes listening, naming contribution, and proposing change; apology without those elements is conflict-closure, not repair.
- Self-blame as a way to end the conflict quickly, mistaken for accountability. Distinction: repair names a specific contribution; self-blame flattens into "it was all my fault so let's move on".
Absence indicators
- After a conflict, the student's account consistently places the cause entirely on the other party, with no observable noticing of their own role.
- The student avoids conflict rather than repair, absenting themselves from a peer or context until the situation is forgotten.
Conversation prompts
- Tell me about a time you and a friend disagreed and then repaired it — what was the hardest part?
- When has it been easiest to own your part in a conflict, and when has it felt hardest?
- What do you notice about how you react right after a disagreement — what's the move you want to practise?
Band E— Stone Dragons
G9–10ages 14–16
E.1The student facilitates repair in group conflict, naming a group dynamic that contributed to the conflict, and proposes steps that address the needs of multiple parties rather than only defending one position.
Observation indicators
- The student facilitates repair in group conflict (not only one-on-one), holding space for multiple perspectives, rather than only advocating for their own.
- The student names a group dynamic (in-group/out-group, airtime imbalance, historical friction between two members) that contributed to the conflict.
- The student proposes steps that address the needs of multiple parties rather than only defending one position — including parties with less social power in the group.
- The student tracks the repair over time, not only in the moment of the first conversation.
Confusable behaviours
- "Mediator" role as performance (appearing to facilitate while steering toward own position) mistaken for genuine facilitation. Distinction: the disposition shows in the quality of airtime other parties get, not only in the mediator's language.
- Naming group dynamics in analytical terms ("this is pluralistic ignorance") mistaken for empathic facilitation. Distinction: the disposition is about what it does for the parties, not about correctly labelling the phenomenon.
Absence indicators
- In group conflict, the student consistently ends up advocating for the position closest to their own, without noticing this pattern.
- The student's facilitation breaks down when power dynamics surface (older peer, higher-status peer, conflict with a teacher).
Conversation prompts
- When a group conflict shows up, where does your instinct take you — advocate, facilitate, withdraw — and why?
- Tell me about a repair you helped with where power dynamics were in play. How did you notice?
- How has the way you hold conflict in groups changed through this year?
Band F— Sky Dragons
G11–12ages 16–18
F.1The student adjusts their response, in a specific situation, to someone whose experience is being shaped by structural or systemic factors, in ways that address those conditions rather than only the individual person — across more than one observed occasion, such that recognition of structure is inferred from the adjustment, not from verbal recognition alone.
Observation indicators
- Across more than one observed occasion in different interactions, the student responds to someone shaped by a structural factor (language access, migration status, gender-based targeting, class resource gap, racialised treatment) with a response that addresses the condition — advocating quietly to a teacher, reallocating the group's resource, adjusting the format of a shared task — not only the momentary feeling.
- The student modifies their own behaviour (how they divide work, whom they defer to, what they propose in a group) in the presence of structural disadvantage affecting a peer, without waiting for the peer to name the disadvantage and without announcing their own awareness of it.
- The teacher notices the student's response to the same person changes across contexts when the structural factor does — e.g. at a social moment vs in an institutional moment vs in a peer-pressure moment — showing the adjustment is to the condition, not a generic empathic posture.
- The student, in repair after an incident, names what about the conditions mattered — not only how the affected person felt — and proposes a next step that changes those conditions in the peer group or classroom.
Confusable behaviours
- Verbally recognising structural or systemic factors fluently in an assessed task or assembly, with no corresponding change in the student's response toward an affected peer in everyday interaction. Distinction: Band F requires action-adjustment as the primary observable; verbal recognition is supporting, not primary.
- Performative advocacy — public statements, social-media-style framing, badge-wearing — produced for an audience, with no evidence of adjustment in ordinary peer interactions. Distinction: the adjustment must show up when no audience is watching for it, and across more than one occasion.
- A single dramatic intervention (a single stand-up-to-a-bully moment) with no pattern either side of it. Distinction: Band F is dispositional — it requires the pattern across occasions.
Absence indicators
- The student's response to someone shaped by structural factors does not vary with the conditions — only with the immediate emotional display — showing that empathy is operating at the Band E level, not the structural level.
- When structural factors are relevant (a recently arrived peer navigating language access, a peer targeted on a gendered or racial basis), the student engages only through generalised kind words or avoidance, with no observable adjustment of what they do.
- In repair or reflection, the student frames the incident entirely as an interpersonal misunderstanding, showing no working awareness of conditions as a layer to address.
Conversation prompts
- Think of a time this term when someone you were working with was being affected by something bigger than the moment — their situation, how the school treats something, how a group was being read. What did you actually do differently?
- Where in the last month did you change how you were doing something — not just what you were saying — because of what was shaping a peer's experience?
- What's the difference, for you, between noticing that structural stuff is in play and actually adjusting what you do? Can you give me a recent example of each?