.b Foundations is an 8-week course for staff and other adults working in educational contexts to learn mindfulness. Mindfulness in Schools is growing due to favourable outcomes in emotional health and well-being and in particular in enhancing resilience in staff and in students. As part of the Mindful Nation Report (read here) 2 recommendations are:
- The Department for Education (DfE) should …. Pioneer mindfulness teaching, to coordinate and develop innovation, test models of replicability and scalability and disseminate best practice.
- Given the DfE’s interest in character and resilience (Character Education Grant programme), we propose a comparable Challenge Fund of £1 million a year to which schools can bid for the costs of training teachers in mindfulness
It is evident from the research to date that mindfulness can and does increase levels of resilience in school communities, leading to better behaviour, respect and crucially teaching and learning outcomes – of a holistic nature.
Karen has trained with Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP) to teach each of their 3 programmes, (.b Foundations; .b for teens; PAWS b for younger children). As a school and college teacher herself, (secondary MFL and Psychology), Karen knows only too well the stress and strain that school staff are under. She teaches school staff from that grounded perspective with insight and humour.
There is no doubt that improving emotional resilience for all within school communities, including the parents, that our young people have a better chance of achieving well in all aspects of life. There is also no doubt that we are in a crisis of emotional and mental wellbeing, with the onset of mental health problems starting earlier and earlier in children. This is partly due to the fast paced technological age we live in, with ever more unsolicited and dubious sources of information bombarding our brains, which are not configured for this kind of activity.
Choice in every aspect of life is phenomenal and decision making increasingly complex and bewildering – even for adults. Children and young people are constantly logged in to various devices and gadgets and increasing disengaged with the experience of real life.
A balance is desperately needed. The challenge is to re-introduce aspects of our common humanity which seem to be subsumed by the culture of ‘more’ and ‘FOMO’. Characteristics such as discernment, humility, compassion, respect and focus are integral to this re-balance.
My vision is that by introducing a mindfulness ethos to school, staff and students could benefit from better life outcomes by becoming more resilient to stress, more focused, have better powers of discernment and therefore make more informed choices moment by moment borne out of response rather than habitual reaction.
A model that has proven to work well is that school localities work together to provide a cost effective mechanism to offer this valuable training to staff who are interested in learning better coping strategies in the classroom and in their daily challenge to realise that elusive work life balance.
As the MiSP website says: “If a more mindful culture in schools is to become a reality, a core group of staff exploring and practicing mindfulness is essential.”
What will teachers learn from a bespoke 8 week mindfulness course?
Experiential group learning and discussion aids teachers to explore how mindful awareness can support their wellbeing. The training includes twenty minutes daily practice following guided mindfulness meditations at home. Informal daily mindfulness strategies provide valuable tools for coping with difficult and unexpected challenges whether in school or at home.
Through the training staff should:
• learn practical ways to feel calmer and more present in their work and communication • cultivate compassion for self and others
• develop together as a ‘mindfulness staff group’ in school • feel that their wellbeing is valued by the school
• develop higher self awareness of how mindfulness helps in coping with anxiety, stress and worry thereby offering a model for those who go on to teach pupils
Staff who are interested could then go on to train with a MiSP trainer to learn either the PAWS b or .b for teens curriculum to teach to their own students.
Alternatively, Karen would be happy to teach a cohort of students in either a secondary school or a primary school to model how this could look and to evaluate outcomes for that cohort after the course. This could be of particular value to 6th form students at the beginning of their A level courses, or for year 10 pupils before GCSEs so that they have time to practice and embed the training in preparation for the study and exams they will take in years 11 and 13. Or indeed for year 6 pupils preparing for transition.
Clearly the benefits of teaching younger children mindful resilience is in helping them to learn to cope with daily stress at an earlier stage in their lives, and to successfully navigate the minefields of childhood and school before reaching the hormonal challenges that present themselves in adolescence.
Karen would be happy to come into school to demonstrate how this could look for an individual school or cluster of schools or pyramid in a 2 and half hour session. Please contact Karen via this website or [email protected]