What is Getting Along Together?
Getting Along Together (GAT) is SFA’s schoolwide approach to building the cognitive-regulation, emotional-regulation, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills students need to learn and work well together.
Students learn shared tools and routines through explicit lessons and daily practice, and those skills are reinforced across classrooms and the school.
Getting Along Together is rated a SELect program by CASEL — the highest level of evidence for effectiveness at improving student outcomes, supporting students' social and emotional growth across all five CASEL competencies.
The skills students
need to learn well together.
GAT builds five interconnected areas of skill that research shows are essential for learning and for life:
- Cognitive and metacognitive skills — focus, memory, self-control, and cognitive flexibility. The foundational habits students need to engage with challenging material and stay on task.
- Emotional regulation — identifying and managing feelings, staying calm under pressure, developing empathy for others. Students who can regulate their emotions are students who can learn.
- Interpersonal skills — conflict resolution, reading social cues, prosocial behavior, and the habits of productive teamwork.
- Social problem-solving — practical strategies for navigating real peer situations, resolving conflict constructively, and making decisions that support the whole group.
- Goal setting and motivation — students set goals for their classroom community, track progress, and build the habits of self-monitoring that drive long-term academic success.
How is GAT structured?
The first two weeks — daily lessons
The school year opens with two weeks of daily lessons, approximately 90 minutes each, taught in homeroom classrooms. These lessons introduce the core skills, tools, and shared expectations that will be used all year: Stop and Stay Cool, Think-It-Through sheets, the Peace Path, I Messages, and team cooperation goals. Students don't just hear about these skills — they practice them, discuss them, and begin using them immediately.
Weekly lessons throughout the year
After the launch, GAT continues with a weekly half-hour lesson that deepens students' understanding across unit topics including friendship, empathy, cognitive skills, hurdles to teamwork, and problem solving. Lessons are built around the Cycle of Effective Instruction — the same framework used in SFA's reading curriculum — so learning is active, structured, and reinforced through peer practice.
Daily practice structures
Three brief daily structures keep GAT skills alive between lessons:
- Cool Kid — Every student has a turn being recognized and celebrated by their class. Builds a culture of appreciation and positive feedback.
- Cooperative Challenge — A schoolwide weekly challenge where every team in the building practices the same observable behavior — helping, encouraging, giving compliments, using I Messages. Because the challenge is schoolwide, it embeds GAT skills into the culture of the entire building, not just individual classrooms.
- Brain Games — Fast, fun games that build focus, memory, self-control, and cognitive flexibility. Teachers can use them anytime — between subjects, while waiting for lunch, or as a quick re-engagement tool during the day.
Weekly Class Council
Each week ends with a half-hour Class Council — a structured meeting where students celebrate class strengths, review their weekly goal, identify what they want to improve, and set a new measurable goal together. Students are not passive recipients of school culture. They are active builders of it.
Parent Peek
Families receive regular communication about what skills students are learning in GAT, so the language and strategies extend into the home.
Who is GAT for — and where does it fit?
GAT is designed to be consistent, relentless, and schoolwide. All staff — including non-homeroom instructors, special education teachers, and paraprofessionals — are trained so that GAT skills are reinforced in every classroom, every hallway, the cafeteria, the playground, and every common space in the building.
"My kindergartners have drastically improved their behavior this school year. The built-in lessons for GAT, Brain Games, and social/emotional learning have drastically impacted their social development. They're still five — however they try to solve problems versus constantly looking for adult assistance."
Dana Wade
Commonwealth Community Development Academy, Michigan
"I had a child that was very withdrawn and have seen this student blossom this year because of TEAM TALK!"
Pam Kelly
Houston Lower Elementary, Mississippi
How does GAT connect to the rest of SFA?
When students know how to work in cooperative teams, the SFA reading block works better. When they know how to resolve conflict without adult intervention, instructional time is protected. When they set goals and track progress, the motivation structures built into every SFA lesson — team scores, celebration points, Cool Kid — do their job.
Schools that implement GAT consistently report stronger and more natural cooperative learning structures — and what turns a school into the kind of place every student and adult wants to be.
Interested in Getting Along Together for your school?
Getting Along Together is included in the full SFA model and available as a standalone offering for schools not implementing the full model.
For schools interested in implementing GAT as a standalone program, reach out to request samples, pricing, and implementation details. A member of our team will follow up with everything you need.
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See Getting Along Together in action. Watch how SFA works in real classrooms, including the cooperative learning structures and school culture routines that GAT makes possible.