Well-being

Well-being within the classroom and throughout the school is becoming a massive part of primary school’s curriculum especially with the new Donaldson curriculum. In the new curriculum there are six key areas of learning and one of them is health and well-being. Children and young people need to experience social, emotional and physical well-being to ensure that they engage fully with their education. This area of learning should help them to build on the knowledge and skills that they may already have but it will enable them to develop appropriate and positive relationships and to deal with tough decisions and issues that they will face in the real world (Donaldson, 2015).  

White (2011) says that education for well-being involves preparing the children for a life of autonomous, whole-hearted and successful engagement in activities and relationships. White (2011) states that well-being education is built around gathering personal qualities on one hand and understanding on the other. This shows that children going to school is not all about learning Maths and English, but they learn life knowledge and skills along the way.

Well-being can be taught or led inside or outside of the classroom. You can teach well-being to children in many different ways. Mindfulness is something that can be done within a primary school that may be able to help with children’s well-being along with them learning.

Mindfulness is ‘paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally’ (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p.4).

Mindfulness is receiving more attention in popular culture than ever before especially within schools (Erwin, 2015). Erwin (2015) states that mindfulness is having increased attention in education, for both primary age children and older. Some educators have started to explore opportunities to allow students to engage in mindfulness practices to promote children’s positive academic, emotional and behavioural outcomes in the classroom. Schools are not just places for learning, but they are also a setting to help promote positive development (Sheinman, 2018)

Mindfulness is a good way to help get children to learn to stop their minds wandering and regulate their emotions and attention. Also, they need to be able to deal with feelings of frustration and to self-motivate. Mindfulness practice enhances these qualities. (Zenner, 2014)

From my personal experience I have seen a form of Mindfulness being done in a Year Two class. All the children were sat on the carpet in pairs and they done a massage session which the class had previously been taught by an outside agency who had come into the school. Then once a day if there was time towards the end of the day the teacher would play the calming music and the children would take it in turns to take deep breathes, massage each other on the hand, up the arm and on their heads etc. This was a good idea to calm the children down and get them ready to go home it made the children sit quietly and concentrate. It even helped them to forget about any of their worries maybe because they had to concentrate on massaging their partner and being gentle. It was also something that the children enjoyed and looked forward to doing. Sheinman (2018) believes that by schools doing something similar to this and having a mindfulness approach within the school it can have an influence on how the children cope and their ability to respond to everyday challenges or difficulties.

There is a Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP) that helps to bring mindfulness into schools. They state that there are many benefits for the children from it such as improving concentration and cognition, social and emotional learning, improved behaviour and better mental health and wellbeing. Although, mindfulness being taught in schools has many benefits for the children it also has benefits for the teachers. These benefits include stress regulation and reduction, increased self-compassion and increased teaching efficacy. (Mindfulness in schools project, 2018)

Here is an image of the organisations website with the hyperlink to take you to the page. It has information on what mindfulness is, why schools do it and how you could bring mindfulness into your school as a teacher. (Mindfulness in schools project, 2018)

Apart from mindfulness, yoga is another way to improve health and wellbeing by exercises, breathing and meditation. (Erichter, 2016)

Here are two images from a yoga session that we took part in with a primary school in one of our seminars in university. It was not just exercise but it was fun for the children including games and activities, but it is something that is also good for their well-being and gives them some sort of physical activity. In my opinion the children really seemed to enjoy it and got involved. Yoga offers opportunities for children to develop skills such as mindfulness, anger control and resilience. Some studies have also suggested that yoga may help to develops some pupils’ mind-body awareness, self-regulation and physical fitness which then may enhance behaviour and physical, menta and emotional health. (Nanthakumar, 2018)

On a whole, different mindfulness sessions can have positives on children’s mental health along with their social and emotional well-being however evidence from research has shown that there is not a long-term impact of mindfulness training. There is evidence that links health, well-being and educational achievement, this helps to support the fact that mindfulness and yoga can be good in schools because it may have an impact on the children’s achievement in school (Hutchinson, 2018).

References

Donaldson, G. (2015). ‘Successful Futures.’ Available at: http://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/150225-successful-futures-en.pdf. (Last accessed 27/11/18)

Erichter, S. et al. (2016). ‘Yoga training in junior primary school-aged children has an impact on physical self-perceptions and problem-related behaviour’, Frontiers in Psychology, 7

Erwin, E, J. and Robinson, K, A. (2015). ‘The joy of being: making way for young children’s natural mindfulness’, Early Child Development and Care, 186(2), pp.268-286.

Hutchinson, J. et al. (2018). ‘Exploring experiences of children in applying a school-based mindfulness programme to their lives’, Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(2), pp. 3935-3951.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go. There you are: mindfulness meditation in everyday life. London: Hachette Books.

Mindfulness in Schools Project. (2018). ‘Mindfulness. Why do it?’ Available at: https://mindfulnessinschools.org/mindfulness-in-education/why-do-it/ (Last accessed 03/12/18)

Nanthakumar, C. (2018). ‘The benefits of yoga in children’, Journal of Integrative Medicine, 16(1), pp. 14-19.

Sheinman, N. et al. (2018). ‘Preliminary investigation of whole school mindfulness in education programs and children’s mindfulness-based coping strategies’, Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(10), pp. 3316-3328

White, J.P. (2011). ‘Exploring Well-Being in Schools: A Guide to Making Children’s Lives More Fulfilling.’ London: Taylor &Francis Group

Zenner, C., Herrnleben-Kurz, S., & Walach, H. (2014). ‘Mindfulness-based interventions in schools: a systematic review and meta-analysis’, Frontiers in Psychology, 5(603), pp. 1-20.