A Mindful Approach to Resilience in Children

Julie Pearson considers mindfulness and how it can be used in schools to support children’s well-being.

At a time when resilience in children, teachers and families is reaching crisis point, a school in America hits the news by replacing detention with meditation with amazing results – it was reported that since setting up the programme two years ago, the school has not issued a single suspension! ⁽¹⁾

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      string(3514) "A need for tailored emotional and physical wellbeing support in UK secondary schools has been identified in a new report following a pilot by not-for-profit UK healthcare organisation, Nuffield Health.   With news from the government that an additional £2 billion will be invested to fund specialist mental health teams in schools to offset the growing levels of obesity in children, Nuffield Health has identified ways in which physical and emotional wellbeing provisions can be established for both students and teachers.The ‘Improving wellbeing in schools’ report shares the findings from a pilot that installed a Head of Wellbeing within a secondary school for two years, which completed last year.  An initial assessment of the school—Wood Green School, Witney, Oxfordshire—had highlighted mental health issues and stress management as priorities for intervention.  A survey of the staff and students had showed lower then national average levels of wellbeing. The Head of Wellbeing from Nuffield Health worked closely with students and staff to assess emotional and physical wellbeing priorities and develop a targeted, responsive programme of initiatives and activities for the whole school. Initiatives included making water more widely available and offering healthy eating options, enhancing existing provision through extra resources or more accessible sessions, and running classes in mental wellbeing techniques, such as mindfulness and resilience.  By embedding these tactics, which also included improving fruit and vegetable consumption, educating students to have better understanding of their bodies, and providing students with the impetus to exercise more regularly, the pilot achieved a marked improvement in healthy eating habits and an increase in the number of staff using gym facilities. By implementing this structure, wellbeing improved for both teachers and pupils within the school.As a result of the pilot, wellbeing is now one of Wood Green School’s six values and timetabled within the school curriculum. Head teacher, Robert Shadbolt, made a crucial decision to invest budget in maintaining a wellbeing role as a part-time post after the completion of the project.   Shadbolt said after the pilot:  ‘I don’t believe there’s a single child in this school who hasn’t thought about the importance of what they eat, what exercise they do, what they do with their screen time, the importance of good mental health and how they achieve that. ‘Having someone whose specific role it is to coordinate, deliver and drive the wellbeing programme, rather than trying to combine this with a member of staff’s other teaching commitments, is critical to its success.’Using the insights from this pilot, Nuffield Health has developed swap, the Schools Wellbeing Activity Programme. The programme is free and offers evidence-based lessons that can be delivered by Nuffield Health experts, to support local schools in their area, either as a 6-week programme or in individual sessions.To download and read the ‘Improving wellbeing in schools: Evidence and recommendations from a Head of Wellbeing pilot’ report in full, visit www.nuffieldhealth.com/about-us/our-researchFind out more about swap at www.nuffieldhealth.com/swap"
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Leadership

Dedicated Specialists Improving Wellbeing in Schools

23 Jan 2019

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      string(5645) "personality that students can choose between freely. What’s Up? Students can type or speak, letting the Worrinot know whatever is on their mind. Make the Fear DisappearDepending on which Worrinot the child chose, their fear will be ripped, stomped, etc. and the child can watch it disappear on the screen. Worri-Tips The Worrinots encourage children to read the age-appropriate Worri-Tips & learn life-long coping mechanisms.Once the child has made the fear disappear, it is forwarded to the monitoring app, WatNot, which is a unique monitoring system designed specifically to help teachers and safeguarding officers identify and monitor fears that have been shared. 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It has tools to help with relaxation, developing more helpful ways of thinking and identifying active steps to help teens take charge of their anxiety. In addition to everyday anxiety, it addresses specific issues such as:  Making Sleep CountRiding Out Intense EmotionsTest AnxietyPerfectionismSocial AnxietyPerformance AnxietyWorryPanicConflictIn addition to delivering clear and relevant information that helps students learn about anxiety, assess their own situation and piece together a personalised plan to help manage the anxiety, the app has some great ‘chill out’ tools, such as relaxation exercises, visualisations and mindfulness strategies. Teens start by selecting a situation they are struggling with from the list of ‘My Situations’ and then they can get the facts related to anxiety and the situation their facing. Then they go through some ‘Check In’ exercises to see whether a particular situation is a problem. They can then develop their personalsed program, starting with finding more helpful thoughts with a set of ‘Thinking Right’ prompts, then dialing down the anxiety with the ‘Chill out Tools’ and then identifying next actions in the ‘Active Steps’ area. There is a place to jot down thoughts and feelings and inspirational quotes to keep momentum going. Although the app isn’t especially school-based, it has great content that can be introduced in a PSHE class and then the app can support teens independently as they try to work with the relevant tools and approaches.Mind Moose https://www.mindmoose.co.uk/Mind Moose offers schools a way to support and monitor the mental wellbeing and emotional health of primary-aged pupils through a fun, online programme. Pupils go on a journey of discovery with Mind Moose and his friends, watching short, fun animations before completing reflective activities based on the topics. They earn badges and certificates along the way and they are given ‘Moose Missions’ to undertake in school, or at home. 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Applications and Software

Nurturing Mental Health with Wellbeing Apps for Young People

8 Aug 2019

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      string(5764) "With 25 years of experience in child development and physical and mental health, I felt that the time was right for a step-change in how we support children’s mental health and wellbeing in schools. School days can be the best days of your life but they are certainly full of ups and downs.That’s totally normal. I firmly believe that the key to enabling children to thrive in school is helping them to see that everyone needs help sometimes and it’s ok to ask for it. Giving children the tools to know who and how to ask for help is vital and we must empower them with a common language, so they can identify what they’re feeling and how to express themselves in a way that is understood by their peers, teachers and parents.A framework for conversationsEvidence suggests that schools, teachers and children need help. All of these groups need to feel that they are being supported through the uncertainties that we are now facing, they need to understand that it’s perfectly natural to feel anxious and worried and, most importantly, they must know who and how to ask for help.Delivered through the PHSE timetable, the iSpace Wellbeing and #iWonder Curriculums enable a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing. The evidence-based curriculums provide an age appropriate framework for mental health conversations across KS1, KS2 and KS3 and are designed to make learning about mental health a fun and engaging experience.The Wellbeing GalaxyThe curriculum starts in KS1, with stories that introduce children to characters such as Dunican (Dun ‘I can’) and Niam (N ‘I am’), who live in a Wellbeing Galaxy on the Planet Wellbeing and who learn about their own and other’s thoughts, behaviour and feelings. Their names reinforce some of the core principles of the iSpace Wellbeing curriculum, and help pupils explore topics like ‘who am I?’ and ‘who can I be?’.The curriculum helps children to understand how their brains work, how to identify and discuss their thoughts, feelings and behaviours and to reflect on important early lessons like sharing and friendship, anti-bullying, physical and emotional health, the environment and diversity in our community. In KS2 Dunican and Niam grow and ‘travel’ across the Wellbeing Galaxy, which consists of 10 wellbeing themed planets. Throughout their adventures they collect ‘backpack’ tools and other resources to support the development of healthy relationships, character, emotional intelligence, resilience, life skills and wellbeing.These engaging characters and space-based missions help schools to equip children with the tools and language to understand each other better; identify the resources that can support them to feel healthy and strong and be their best, and to know who and how to ask for help.Additional iSpace Wellbeing resources such as videos, music and Virtual Reality exercises build engagement and encourage active learning, a mindfulness approach, and are included in the curriculum tools.Advanced life skillsThe KS3 #iWonder curriculum focuses on advanced life skills such as managing thoughts, emotions and behaviour, understanding risk in a digital world, problem solving and decisionmaking. It is designed to help older children to navigate their way through life’s ups and downs, learn from failure and build resilience and character.The #iWonder curriculum is based on a compass tool that helps children to navigate their wellbeing landscape and equip and resource themselves with the knowledge and skills to live life well. There is also a journal tool that helps them to securely document their steady progress and development, as they continue through the curriculum. What resources are provided?The curriculums are continually evolving and additional lesson plans and updates are added regularly. Currently there are 20 lessons and supporting slides for KS1, 84 lessons and supporting slides for KS2 and 40 lessons and supporting slides for KS3. Lesson plans can be built around stories, challenges, activities and discussions and are purposely designed to empower children to learn about mental health and wellbeing in a way that will stay with them for the long-term.Every lesson plan contains clear Learning Objectives, an outline of the Materials and Resources that will be used and where to find them, and a helpful summary of Key Words that should be used within the lesson. The lessons themselves are divided into Teacher Knowledge (background information and suggested questions), Teacher Action (steps like introducing the lesson aim, breaking the class into small discussion groups or reading a particular story) and Active Learning (children respond to questions, work in pairs or take part in a challenge).Attention trainingThere are also optional Attention Training exercises that can be used at the start and end of the lesson to help the children relax, as well as Success Criteria, which allow pupils and teachers to reflect on what has been learned. Each lesson plan comes with a range of resources to use or print, including character and planet cards, activities, worksheets and colouring sheets.Schools and parents can also buy toolkits, which include a manual, conversation map and card deck, to provide supporting tools for conversations and group work, and an additional reference guide that can be used by teachers in the classroom or parents at home. The curriculum and supporting toolkit includes everything a teacher could need to run successful lessons on a range of mental health and wellbeing-related topics.What training is provided?"
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Special Needs

Do We Need To Move Children’s Mental Health And Wellbeing Centre Stage

14 Sep 2020

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      string(5685) "others. This habit of metacognition, or stepping back from your thinking, helps creates that all-important growth mindset.Emotional intelligence helps your students to manage their responses to the challenges of learning and of growing up. Employers value employees with high levels of emotional intelligence and this quality is set to remain an essential one, according to World Economic Forum predictions. Leadership training is often focused, for good reasons, on the development of thinking habits that encourage such self-awareness. These lessons will give your students a chance to understand the importance of EQ and how to grow this alongside their academic skills. For some children, school presents the only opportunity to develop the emotional intelligence that others may have the good fortune to have had nurtured in their home environment. For happiness and wellbeing, as well as for success at school and in their careers, we must help our students to value and evolve their emotional intelligence.Judgement and decision makingAim: To help students identify their values and encourage them to make conscious choices for their own benefit.Having good judgement and being able to make sensible decisions is an essential skill for us all. So why is it that some children (and, indeed, some adults) make choices that endanger their health and happiness? These lessons help students to think purposefully about their personal values and how they can use them to make good choices and sensible decisions in life. When children become susceptible to peer pressure, it is often because they haven’t yet developed a clear set of their own values, which can act as an anchor in their tough formative years. The other purpose of these lessons is for students to practice standing back from their immediate, often automatic, responses and to think through the consequences of their decisions, so that they get in the habit of making good judgements.Service orientationAim: To encourage students to want to help other people and to take pride in delivering high-quality outcomes.The idea of being ‘in service’ could be seen as demeaning – perhaps slightly reminiscent of domestic duties or outmoded class hierarchies. However, adopting the mindset of serving others is a very powerful way to see the emergence of a generous spirit and the humility of true self-confidence. When we genuinely want others to be happy and satisfied with how we treat them and take pride in our work, whether we are leaders or not, we learn the dignity and self-esteem that can lead to our own peace and happiness. Helping children to understand how ‘helping others helps me’ will also build the thinking habits that will enable them to reap the rewards of learning from others in our diverse society, in which there are so many different perspectives.Having a service orientation means actively looking for ways to help others – the pandemic has pulled this into sharp focus and often brought out the innate generosity in the human spirit. When adopting a ‘service to others’ outlook, there is a natural inclination to deliver high standards and to work hard to do the very best job possible. Ron Berger describes how nurturing a desire to deliver excellence can transform students’ confidence and motivation when they create real-life projects that serve a purpose in the world.12 This also creates a desire to seek out feedback – to improve and to maintain a courageous spirit of enterprise – helping students to improve their work ethic at school and, later, at work.NegotiationAim: To practise good listening and communication skills that will empower students to develop healthy relationships.Being able to negotiate involves effective communication and emotional resilience. To be able to stand back from your emotions so that you can take an objective view and see all aspects of a situation also requires metacognition and a growth mindset – qualities that these lessons will nurture. These lessons will also develop the gifts of patient listening and empathy that make great negotiators.There is another reason why empathy is an important habit for negotiation – empathetic people are great at getting rapport. Getting rapport elicits wonderful states of cooperation and motivation and means that others can connect with you, which, in turn, enhances your negotiation skills and ability to be a powerful communicator. Teachers who have high levels of empathy can get kids on side and spread the culture of compassion that is an essential underpinning of an ‘outstanding’ school community. Those children who struggle to show empathy may find it harder to understand the impact of any bad behaviour and, as a result, be more likely to commit crimes.These lessons will help those children who find it hard to understand others’ perspectives to deliberately develop the habit of empathy. This starts with a deliberate focus on listening with a clear mind. We can’t hear others if we are too full of our own thoughts and concerns. Mindfulness practice helps us all understand how to clear our minds, and regular practice to enhance wellbeing is recommended within a school setting – as well as within these lessons.Cognitive flexibilityAim: To help students be able to adapt to new situations and maximise their learning capacity.Cognitive flexibility is the ability to change your mind and adapt to different circumstances. This will create resilience and confidence and, above all, a growth mindset that deals effectively with change.[Our] unique human ability [is] to"
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Blogs

After Covid-19 We Need A New Paradigm For Education

26 May 2020