Take a Seat - Make a Friend - Try this in a School?
A beautiful video from Soul Pancake called "Take a Seat - Make a Friend". We think this would be a brilliant exercise for a Primary or Elementary school to help children get to know each other, make friends, and appreciate diversity. This is great. Take 5 minutes and enjoy this. Read full article
Parent Article for Primary School Newsletters
We have developed a quality parent-communication tool for schools in the form of an A4 one-page article for parents that can be easily inserted into your regular school newsletter. As parents are the first and enduring educators of their children, there is great reciprocal value for a school when it shares new ideas and research with families. See details and a sample. Read full article
Mindfulness Training at School Reduces Depression in Teenagers
A study published last month in the Mindfulness Journal, found that a mindfulness program integrated into school hours, can prevent and reduce symptoms of clinical depression in high school students...The researchers found that six months after the study, the mindfulness students with clinical depression symptoms showed significantly greater reductions in depression compared to their control group peers. Read full article
What Makes Teenagers Stand Up for Bullying Victims?
To bully, 'bystand' or 'upstand'? This is the question that adolescents who witness bullying behaviour are processing at the time of an incident. New research from the Harvard Graduate School of Education discovers why teens at school don't always stand up for bullying victims, even though they want to. Read full article
Room to Breathe - Film about Mindfulness in Schools
Room to Breathe is a story of transformation as struggling kids in a San Francisco public middle school are introduced to the practice of mindfulness. Topping the district in disciplinary suspensions, and with overcrowded classrooms creating a nearly impossible learning environment, overwhelmed administrators are left with stark choices. Do they repeat the cycle of forcing tuned-out children to listen, or experiment with a set of age-old inner practices that may provide them with the social, emotional, and attention skills that they need to succeed? Read full article
Using Mindfulness for Teacher Wellbeing
Promising results from pilot studies of teachers using mindfulness in classrooms are exciting educators who say that nurturing teacher mindfulness is a great opportunity to create a caring classroom... results from a study ...of 50 teachers participating in a professional development program facilitated by CARE ... showed that having mindfulness practice in the classroom helped teachers to achieve goals in the classroom, regulate their emotions better, and relate better to students. Read full article
Social and Emotional Learning Programs for Schools
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has released the 2013 CASEL Guide: Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs - Preschool and Elementary School Edition. The Guide identifies 23 school-based programs that promote students' self-control, relationship-building and problem-solving, among other competencies. Emotional Intelligence education has been linked to academic success and many other important social and emotional outcomes for students. Read full article
Teacher Resource for Young Children Learning Emotional Intelligence
The Bear Cards ® are designed to be an easy and fun way of building emotional intelligence in children. An effective and entertaining teacher and resource, also for parenting, the eye catching set of 48 cards depicts Bear experiencing a wide range of emotions, and invites conversations about feelings that children sometimes don’t have the language or opportunity to discuss. Could a set of cards with a bear on them really build emotional intelligence, you ask? Read full article
A School Based on Kindness
In this four minute video, watch what happens everyday in a school in Seattle dubbed The Kindness School. Students start each day talking about something they appreciate. Kindness activities and community interactions are everyday business. Academic classes are not essential. Can traditional schools learn anything from this approach? Read full article
Teaching Emotional Intelligence - How Schools Can Educate Children for Life
Step into Anna Kearney’s third grade classroom, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, California, and you will see amongst the usual colourful art projects, a row of plastic cups stapled to the wall. There are ten numbered cups in all and they are part of Self Science, a social and emotional education curriculum developed by 6 Seconds ... Time spent on Self Science has not detracted from other academic learning, says Kearney, but instead has enhanced learning across the board. Read full article
