• It promotes well-­‐being • It offers knowledge and skills applicable to the child’s life • It can be individually tailored to suit each child • It extends the thinking skills learning which is promoted in the national curriculum such as neuroscience and metacognition. • It helps children understand themselves better • It helps them to be resilient and resourceful when life is challenging • Skills and understanding can be available throughout their school life and beyond.

Paws b provides a programme of six, one hour lessons that include: • Scientific knowledge • Powerpoint lessons with a variety of film clips • Short meditation practices • Discussion and exploration of experiences • Home practice encouragement and support (and therefore integration into life beyond school)

The lessons cover themes of: • our amazing brain • the mind and attention focusing • recognizing and managing everyday “wobbles” through pausing and steadying • discovering stress reactivity patterns common to human beings’ and how mindfulness can support us with these • noticing thinking processes and • happiness, gratitude and kindness.

A Masters study in a primary school showed pupils who were taught mindfulness lessons had increased positive attitudes towards their learning after the lessons compared to the pupils who weren’t taught mindfulness. Additionally, the academic results were better for the pupils that were taught mindfulness. All the lessons seemed to appeal and benefit both boys and girls.

The children report enjoying the lessons and finding the learning supports them in a broad range of situations from being able to concentrate and focus more easily in school to helping them feel calmer in exams and competitions. Many have described sharing the learning with other family members and finding it helps them with their relationships with family and friends.

https://mindfulnessinschools.org/