Mindfulness at Garnteg Primary School

“It calms my nerves before my big singing competition so I can sing with everything I’ve got”

“When I get into a bit of a mood I can use one of the practices to calm me down.”

“It’s changed me a a person. I used to be angry but now I can calm myself.”

“It’s made me a nicer more compassionate person”.

Some of the feedback from Y6 pupils at Garnteg Primary School in Garndiffaith where Years 5 and 6 have been part of a research project with the University of Derby trialling compassionate mind training for pupils, Wellbeing: Our Brains Our Bodies.

The lessons included understanding of emotion systems of the brain and body, including processes of emotion regulation to inform a child’s emotional literacy, as well as practices to aid coping with difficult emotions.

A further aim of the lessons was to introduce pupils to the concept of compassion and how this involves self-compassion, accepting compassion from others and engaging in compassion towards others, with practices introduced to increase all of these flows. 

The trial was designed to explore the implementation and effectiveness across several wellbeing parameters including anxiety, compassion, perfectionism, moods and feelings, self-esteem, emotional literacy and prosocial behaviours. 

Pupils reported positively on their experiences of the CMT lessons and you can hear four Y6 pupils talking about their experiences and how it has benefited them in the video link below.  The research shows benefits for pupil and classroom behaviour, including improved emotion regulation, kindness to others and feelings of inclusion. Benefits were also found to extend to the class teachers.

Commenting on the impact of the lessons, Liz Williams, one of the Mindfulness Wales trainers who is currently working with Garnteg Primary School, said: “The 9–11-year-olds I’ve been teaching have been excited, and even relieved, when they recognise that how they are feeling is part of how their minds and bodies work. This gives them a basis to be kinder to themselves and apply the practices they’ve learned.”

Wellbeing: Our Brains Our Bodies has been developed by Professor Frances Maratos, University of Derby. The programme was taught at Garnteg Primary School to Y5 and Y6 as part of a research project with the University and Mindfulness Wales to trial compassionate mind training for pupils

Mindfulness at Llangatwg Community School

“Every Y7 should do this!”

“It calms me down.”

“It really helps with school work if you’re not so stressed.”

That’s the verdict of pupils at Llangatwg Community School in Neath where the Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP) .b (pronounced dot bee) programme has been introduced, first as part of PSE or PE and now as a contribution to Curriculum for Wales.  All the MiSP curricula have been mapped to show how and where they contribute to the Health and Well-being AoLE as well as underpinning the four purposes

Several staff at Llangatwg are trained to teach .b and Nicola Paddison as a Head of Year and Head of PE talked to Mindfulness Wales about how the programme has been rolled out through the school over several years.  The link to the full video is below.

Nicola describes how mindfulness helps her stay steady and regulated when dealing with challenging pupils which helps calm the situation and enables her to deal more compassionately and effectively with the issues.  She has shared mindfulness with the Teaching Assistants and canteen staff who have really embraced the sessions.  Now she plans to involve more teaching staff, senior management, office staff, governors and parents.  There is significant evidence that mindfulness in schools can enhance the learning environment and help create a calm, compassionate, kinder atmosphere.  Involving as many staff as possible is part of that process for their own wellbeing and for the learning environment.

She also described how the pupils involved are “nicer human beings” with noticeably better behaviour amongst many of them.  They openly looked forward to the lessons and to the opportunities for putting mindfulness to practical use.

Feedback from Open Meeting
17 March 2021

We would like to extend a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to everyone who expressed an interest and who participated in our first open event as Mindfulness Wales CIO.  Welcome to all of you as part of the developing network across Wales working towards building a mindfulness movement to support a more compassionate, kinder, fairer and sustainable society.

We had a total of 74 registrations and 55 participants on the night.  That’s amazing for our opening discussion and we hope you’ll all come back regularly to share your ideas and contribute to topics that grip your interest.  We’ll try to provide a good mixture to cover all sectors in the hope that this will help support your local work and stimulate discussion and action between you and your colleagues.

Please share this document with anyone you think might be interested.  All these meetings will be open to anyone interested in taking forward mindfulness in Wales.  Please encourage people to sign up to our mailing list and follow us on social media to keep in touch with and contribute to our activities:

• sign up to our mailing list http://eepurl.com/gLixsb

Not enough time to discuss and write!

We’re so grateful to those who managed to provide information in the chat function – we’ve been through it all at our Board meeting and have picked out some key emerging themes to follow up.  Thanks too to those who offered help – we’ll be in touch in due course!

We think there may be others of you who have comments or information that might be helpful to us building a picture of what’s going on.  Please let us know by email to mindfulnesswalescio@gmail.com if there is anything you’d like to add to the discussion from 17 March 2021

‘Mapping’ mindfulness activities in Wales

One of the highlights of the meeting was sharing the exciting things already going on.  We’ll include discussion time in each of our meetings to help share information and enhance the networking relationships and we’ll be seeking advice on how we might gather the information on a more organised basis and how we might be able to share this.

Health

Thanks to those of you working in Health for your input and offers of support.  We’ll be in touch to continue these discussions.  We know there are some exciting developments in mindfulness in health which we’d like to share more widely at a future date.  We’ll also have chance to revisit health at our event on 14 July with Vidyamala Burch.

Education

There was lots of recognition of the significant contribution mindfulness can make in the context of the new curriculum.  The detailed development of the Health and Wellbeing Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) will be taking place over the next few months so this is an important time to raise awareness of the high quality mindfulness programmes available.  A Mindfulness Toolkit for Wales has been developed to support education settings (not just schools) to implement a strategic mindfulness journey, ensuring that those teaching mindfulness to learners are properly trained and supported.

Mindfulness for parents was also a theme and Estyn recognises that the most effective wellbeing programmes involve families.  We hope to collect some case studies as they develop – please keep us posted.

We’ve set up a Mindfulness Wales event on 12 May 2021 with Professor Katherine Weare, one of the foremost researchers in mindfulness in education.  Her recent publication Implementing mindfulness in schools – an evidence based guide[1] complements the Toolkit and includes many Welsh examples.  There will be time for discussion and questions for us to explore how this supports the further implementation of mindfulness in education in Wales.

 Links with Welsh Government and other key Organisations

Wales is a small country and we’ve been fortunate to have good relationships with Welsh Government and with officials in relevant areas.  We’re grateful for the support and look forward to widening and deepening these relationships in working towards our mutual aims.  We look forward to using our wide network as Mindfulness Wales to help us make and develop more connections.

Welsh Language

We’re taking forward discussion regarding Welsh medium education and general Welsh language mindfulness provision to discuss how Mindfulness Wales might support the work already under way to develop use of the Welsh language in mindfulness activities.  We’ll report back on this in due course.

Diversity and Accessibility

The Board felt that this broad and vital area deserves particular attention and is key to widening access and equality of opportunity to mindfulness across Wales.  It will be the subject of an open online Mindfulness Wales meeting on 16^th June 2021.  Lots of you raised this issue so please come along if you can.  We’ll seek to identify the issues and share some ideas about how we might address them.

Mindfulness and Nature

There was interest in supporting this area and we’ve identified a number of different applications and activities across Wales in this.  Mindfulness Wales will seek to get some of the interested parties together to share ideas.  Watch this space and please let us know if you are working in this area.

Research

Some of you have kindly offered your expertise in this area and we will be in touch with you.  If you have any ideas though please do contact us.  An evidence base is an essential foundation for all our activities so this is an area we are looking to progress.  Interestingly, this formed part of the First Minister’s address at our Conference in November 2019.

Upcoming Events

Mindfulness: developing agency in urgent times

21 April 2021 7-8.30pm

Join Jamie Bristow, Director of The Mindfulness Initiative and Mindfulness Wales to discuss how mindfulness can help us build collective action to underpin the decisions and choices we make at all levels to create the Wales we want to see.

https://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org/agency-in-urgent-times

Supporting Mindfulness in Education in Wales

12 May 2021 7-8.30pm

Professor Katherine Weare

Implementing mindfulness in schools: an evidence-based approach

https://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org/implementing-mindfulness-in-schools-an-evidence-based-guide

Mindfulness in Wales: Diversity and Accessibility

16 June 2021, 7:00-8.30pm

Contributors to be confirmed

A collaborative approach to defining the best way(s) forward to widen access throughout Wales.

Mind and Body: how mindfulness can help physical healthcare

14 July 7:00-8.30pmVidyamala Burch

Breathworks founder, author of Mindfulness for Health and Mindfulness for Women

[1] https://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org/implementing-mindfulness-in-schools-an-evidence-based-guide

The Mindfulness Toolkit sets out to provide the information an education setting might need to develop a strategic mindfulness journey to embed high quality mindfulness across the institution in a sustainable and effective way.  It is designed to support the wellbeing of staff and learners in any education setting in Wales as well as implementation of the Whole School Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing and the new curriculum for Wales, particularly the four purposes of education and the health and Wellbeing Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE)  

§Developed from good practice in Wales and elsewhere with input from as many sectors and relevant organisations as possible, the toolkit forms part of a wider ‘living strategy’ for mindfulness in Wales which is developing to include health, public service and other workplaces, community and more, to support the aims of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. The involvement of wider society in Wales will amplify the work in education settings and contribute to making Wales a kinder, more compassionate and responsive nation.

We have looked at the potential for mindfulness in all sectors of education to support the concerns about children and young people’s emotional and mental health.  We know that 50% of mental health problems begin before the age of 15 years and 75% by age 24 years so early prevention is important.  This work has been given even greater significance by the experiences of learners, staff, leaders and families in response to Covid-19 as well as the systemic change required to implement the transformation agenda and the far-reaching new curriculum.  

Mindfulness in an Education Context

For all of us in education mindfulness can help us cope with the pressures and uncertainties of life and work, connect with people and places, flourish through appreciating ourselves, others and the world around us, and provide the perspective and vision to empower us to change what isn’t working for us.  These four aspects are key to our wellbeing.

COPE  –  CONNECT   –  FLOURISH  –  EMPOWER CHANGE

The Toolkit draws on the good practice criteria identified in the Estyn Review Healthy and Happy: School impact on pupil health and wellbeing which also forms an important element of the draft Statutory Guidance in The Whole School Approach.

The key aspects of good practice identified in the Estyn review which can be applied to mindfulness in education for all age groups and settings in Wales include:

• quality consistent training for staff
• ongoing support in schools/clusters/colleges/universities/areas
• embedding mindfulness in a whole school/college/university or setting approach
• cross curriculum application
• a spiral curriculum throughout education
• involving families where possible 

We know that many schools have introduced entry-level or mindfulness-inspired activities perhaps using Apps or staff experience of mindfulness. Staff and learners generally enjoy these activities and learners will have various responses. They may be more aware of their current emotional state, they may feel calmer, more focused and able to concentrate or more able to make effective choices.  These can be a great introduction to mindfulness but may not give learners the more sustainable understanding, the range of skills and the self regulation to embed mindfulness in their lives. The difference between mindful activities and a high quality mindfulness curriculum is like the saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach him to fish and you feed him for life.” In line with the criteria set out in Estyn’s Healthy and Happy Review we make a distinction in this Toolkit between mindfulness-inspired activities and the high quality mindfulness programmes available which will contribute effectively to the Health and Wellbeing AoLE and the Whole School Approach. 

Cost Effectiveness

In order to introduce and sustain mindfulness in an effective way to enable to full benefits, including training as many staff as possible in an 8 week course and supporting key staff to access the further training to teach one of the learners’ programmes there is an up-front cost (guide costs are set out in Annex 2 of the Toolkit).  Once staff have been trained there is minimal ongoing cost in supporting staff and providing the curriculum.

Training staff who go on to deliver a high quality mindfulness programme to learners over five years reduces the cost per head to around £5.  But perhaps the greater cost effectiveness relates to staff themselves, especially in these challenging times.  Research by Katherine Weare Evidence for Mindfulness: Impact on the Wellbeing and Performance of School Staff (2014) found:

This could have a significant impact on staff absence and quality of teaching providing a cost benefit in terms of cover costs and performance. 

How Mindfulness fits with other Initiatives

We recognise that there is no room or time to pursue initiatives that do not form part of a coherent and complementary whole.  We have set out how mindfulness links to and supports a range of activities already being implemented in education settings.  Mindfulness can be a significant contributor to the curriculum in its own right but can also be an enabler for learners in all aspects of their lives.

Mindfulness Embedded for All

Mindfulness provides skills and understanding which are relevant to all ages and abilities.  We have a range of programmes that have the potential to make mindfulness accessible for a wide range of additional learning needs.  The programmes identified in the Toolkit are designed for whole class teaching and the aims of cope, connect, flourish and empower change are relevant for all learners, especially as part of the new curriculum.

Good Practice Examples

We have drawn on the developing good practice in a range of settings in Wales where mindfulness has been introduced in different ways and in various contexts.  These case studies are intended to provide examples which might help other settings in starting their own strategic mindfulness journey.  We look forward to collecting others as more settings develop their strategic mindfulness journey.

Costs and Models of Implementation

The Toolkit sets out the programmes currently available which best meet the criteria set out in the Estyn Review Healthy and Happy: School impact on pupil wellbeing. It demonstrates the training routes education staff would be able to take to develop their own mindfulness and to enable them to access training programmes which would equip them to teach high quality programmes to learners and includes guide costs to inform ongoing strategic planning.

Links with the New Curriculum

Annex 3 sets out how mindfulness can support the four purposes of education and the What Matters Statements of the Health and Wellbeing AoLE.

Evaluating the Impact of Mindfulness in Education

We need to be sure our good intentions translate into practice and actually make a positive difference to the adults and learners we work with.  This Toolkit (Annex 4) identifies a range of measures which are available to help us demonstrate the impact of mindfulness for adults and learners in education.

Evaluating impact suggestions included here fall into three main categories:

1. Evidence and observations directly related to mindfulness in the classroom
2. The contribution made by mindfulness to the Progression Steps for the Health and Wellbeing AoLE and the Whole School Approach
3. More formal research and validated tools for measuring wellbeing

We will continue to work with settings to identify ways to capture the developing understanding and skills without adding to the assessment burden.  We believe the new assessment arrangements and evidence from some of the existing tools in common use will be important in this task and provide some examples of how they have been used to date. 

Conclusion

Introducing and embedding a range of mindfulness practices and understanding some of the underpinning neuroscience over time help develop focus and attention, regulate emotions and calm ourselves, connect with others and encourage curiosity, kindness, appreciation and gratitude.  Mindfulness is much more than coping strategies – it’s about empowerment, self-awareness and creativity. 

These strategies are as important for staff as they are for learners, as we move forward into a period of significant systemic change as part of the National Mission for Education.  We believe mindfulness can support education staff to cope with the challenges they are facing due to the impact of COVID-19, and to help strengthen their resilience to take forward the exciting new developments.  We hope it will give as many learners as possible the tools which might enable them not only to cope better with the world in which they are growing up but also perhaps the skills, awareness and perspective to change it for the better.

Gellir addasu Rhaglenni ar Sail Ymwybyddiaeth Ofalgar i gyfrannu at ddulliau gweithredu sector cyhoeddus mewn sawl ffordd

• cyfuno â dulliau newid sefydliadol i helpu arweinwyr a staff i ddatblygu a dod i ddeall y meddwl mewn ffordd fwy cymdeithasol a chyd-destunol. Gall hyn arwain at newid ar lefel ddiwylliannol a strwythurol.
• Gallan nhw helpu staff i ddeall damcaniaethau’r meddwl sy’n meithrin persbectif, sy’n cynyddu empathi ac sy’n eu helpu i ddeall eu rhagfarnau nhw eu hunain ac eraill. Gall hyn wella’r berthynas rhwng cydweithwyr.
• Drwy ddefnyddio model cymdeithasol o straen a delio â rhagfarn, maen nhw’n mynd i’r afael ag achos gwreiddiol y straen. Gall y newidiadau o ran diwylliant ac arferion a ddaw 

English

Yng Nghymru, rydyn ni wedi bod yn archwilio sut y gallen ni addasu rhaglenni ymwybyddiaeth ofalgar i gyflawni’r deilliannau hyn. Dros saith mlynedd rydyn ni wedi datblygu’r rhaglen Cipolwg ar Ymddygiad a Gwneud Penderfyniadau ar Sail Ymwybyddiaeth Ofalgar, y mae Rachel Lilley wedi ei threialu â gweision sifil Cymreig fel rhan o’i hymchwil doethuriaeth ym Mhrifysgol Aberystwyth. 

Dechreuodd y rhaglen hon drwy ystyried sut y gellid defnyddio ymwybyddiaeth ofalgar i dargedu arferion gwaith yn y llywodraeth a’r sector cyhoeddus, o’u cymharu â mentrau lles neu hunan-wella eraill. Yn ôl y gwaith ymchwil, mae gweithwyr sector cyhoeddus yn treulio’r rhan fwyaf o’u hamser yn gweithio gyda’u meddyliau nhw eu hunain ac eraill – hynny ydy’n cyd-drafod, deall gwybodaeth gymhleth, cydweithredu a rheoli perthnasau. Ond nid oes llawer o gyfle i ystyried darganfyddiadau gwyddonol diweddar am y ffordd y mae ein meddyliau’n dirnad gwybodaeth, y cysylltiad rhwng emosiynau a gwybyddiaeth neu sut mae rhagfarn yn effeithio ar ein dealltwriaeth.

Datblygodd Rachel raglen yn defnyddio ymwybyddiaeth ofalgar i helpu timau polisi i archwilio’r damcaniaethau diweddaraf am y meddwl a chydweithiodd ag eraill i ddatblygu dulliau ymchwil addas. Ar ôl i bobl ennill gwybodaeth a sgiliau yn y meysydd hyn (yn hytrach na dysgu i ddelio â straen eu swydd( roedden nhw fel petaen nhw’n fwy bodlon. Roedden nhw’n gallu newid eu dulliau gweithredu i greu perthnasau gwell a dechrau mynd i’r afael â rhagfarnau. 

Roedd y rhaglen yn defnyddio fframwaith damcaniaethol ar sail economeg ymddygiadol – dull seiliedig ar seicoleg a niwro-wyddoniaeth o ystyried llywodraeth. Gwnaeth hyn y rhaglen yn berthnasol yn y cyd-destun hwn, ac aeth i’r afael â rhai o’r materion moesegol a all godi yn sgil polisïau ar sail ymddygiad.

Contextualised and adapted Mindfulness Based Programmes can contribute to public sector ways of working, combining with organisational change approaches to support leaders and staff to develop and develop an understanding of the mind which is more social and contextualised. That can create change at a cultural and structural level.

Such approaches can help staff understand theories of mind that support perspective taking, increased empathy and their own and others’ biases. That supports better relational working.

Read in Cymraeg

Mark Drakeford, the Welsh First Minister, addressed the Developing Mindfulness in Wales Conference on 21 November 2019: the first time a government leader or First Minister has addressed a mindfulness conference anywhere in the world. He commented that Wales had a long contemplative tradition and offered three challenges.

• Mindfulness in Wales needs to be based on evidence. Good intentions aren’t enough.
• It needs to focus on individuals not in isolation but in relation to others and in communities. This implies a ‘social model of mindfulness’ that reflects the model of distributed leadership that the Welsh Government seeks to follow.
• And it must pay attention to the causes as well as the consequences of social distress. This means mobilising people to work collaboratively to address those underlying causes.