The Wellbeing in Education Podcast

Feeling slightly more stressed about having to include more wellbeing in the curriculum?!
If that resonates even slightly with you, you are going to love the rest of the conversation that I have with today's guest, Dora, a Class Yoga graduate and training assistant.
Dora shares her thoughts and experiences around the overwhelm and pressure that she once felt as a school teacher, that lead her to starting yoga herself. How the changes to her wellbeing inspired her to find the right mindful yoga experience for her daughter - and how that lead to her training with me and becoming a full time children's yoga teacher.
It's a conversation that I'll think you'll enjoy and learn a lot from, whether you're a parent or teacher.

If you are a school teacher wanting to get started with sharing yoga and mindfulness to your pupils - for the benefit of their wellbeing, and yours - get started with a free trial of Well Ed at classyoga.com/welled. It's the Class Yoga video resources site that expertly guides you to sharing safe, effective yoga and mindfulness in school.

If you have some experience, and you're ready to learn to teach these skills to children, then why not join us on the next CYTT course. Head to classyoga.com/tt to see the upcoming course dates!

Connect with Dora at [email protected] - she teaches yoga to children in West London. 

In this episode I share a series of affirmations that you can share with your children - all around raising self-esteem.
Affirmations are powerful mind tools: when we continue to tell ourselves what we want to experience, the faster those experiences/ feelings will become a reality.
Have a listen through - I repeat the affirmations for a second time - then share them with your children.
Watch a similar video, and download the transcript at classyoga.com/selfesteem

At the time of recording we are approaching the next round of our Teacher Training course! Find out more at classyoga.com/tt

Enjoy yoga, mindfulness, visualisations, relaxations, breathing and affirmation recordings and videos inside Well Ed. Find out more at classyoga.com/welled

Better wellbeing leads to improved academic attainment.
To me, and perhaps yourself, this is a very intuitively true statement.

But as educators, we all want to make the right choices when it comes to improving our children’s wellbeing - so having trusted researched evidence to back our intuition when it comes to raising wellbeing for raising success - is, in my opinion, more than welcome. 

Will government even support us fully without thorough and dedicated academic research linking wellbeing to success? and, might this research actually cause us to question our definition of success and reevaluate what a successful educational outcome looks like?

For these reasons and more, I celebrate today's guest, Tania Clarke, a PhD scholar from the education faculty at Cambridge University, who is undertaking an enormous research project to examen the link between psychological wellbeing and academic attainment at school - so that we all might better understand the reasons behind this relationship that we know exists, and for what this greater understanding could mean for schools.

"Some educators feel that wellbeing is a nicety rather than a necessity, but my research and the work of others in the field suggests that on the contrary, a whole-child approach to education, whereby children's wellbeing is seen as foundational, is critical to children's development of self but also their ability to learn." Tania Clarke.

Join me for this inspiring and highly informative conversation, including Tania's action items for teachers to implement now.

Connect with Tania on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/taniaclarkecambridge/
and Twitter https://twitter.com/taniaclarke_

At Class Yoga we pride ourselves on being experts in wellbeing in education, which is why we created Well Ed - it's a video resources platform for schools and teachers providing yoga and mindfulness for pupils and staff. Start your free trial now at classyoga.com/welled

Today I want to speak to you about some of my core values and methods when it comes to teaching yoga to children, that I've developed through experience over the last 12 years, teaching 1000s of kids from age 3 and up.
 
I want to talk to you about:
- why not to design a yoga class for children around a story - and how to go about it instead.
- why it's useful to plan your lesson, and even better to not use the plan
- why the yoga itself, and we as teachers with the right training and support are enough to captivate, engage and provide an abundance of benefits - from strength and coordination, to self worth and confidence, to resilience and emotional intelligence, and more.

The next Class Yoga Children's Yoga and Mindfulness Teacher Training course starts on the 17th July! This is our 11th course, but the first Summer round we've held! Enrolment closes on the 11th July, so if you have at least one year's personal yoga practice experience, have felt the benefits and want to share those benefits with children aged 4 to 12, then we'd love to welcome you on this 6 week live-led, online course. Head over to classyoga.com/tt to find out the details!

Find out about Well Ed - our video resources platform and the Educator CPD at classyoga.com/welled.

Today I’m thrilled to be talking about growth mindset, with my guest Gemma Sanchez. I’m a big believer in the transformational power of developing a growth mindset for individuals and organisations as it’s something I have worked on personally and in my work within schools through yoga and mindfulness, but if growth mindset is new to you, or you are aware and interested to know more then this conversation is going to excite you!

Gemma and I discuss what Growth Mindset is and how to bring it to an educational setting to benefit pupil and staff wellbeing, how it builds resilience and independent learning capabilities and ultimately improves academic attainment. Let’s dive in!

See exactly how Helen teaches growth mindset through yoga and visualisation, with Well Ed® - the follow-along yoga and mindfulness video resource platform from Class Yoga, designed and taught by Helen especially for pupils and educators. Get your free trial at classyoga.com/welled!

To see more of Gemma's work head on over to:
www.growyourmindset.co.uk

It's a practical follow along episode today. Get you and your children or classroom comfortable, either seated or lying down and join me in this short but very effective breathing exercise designed for children to help them calm down.

After a few times doing this class the kids will start to remember the techniques and apply them themselves in moments of stress, to self regulate their emotions and moods a feel positive and better.

Follow a video version and plenty more yoga and mindfulness classes inside Well Ed® - the follow-along resources platform from Class Yoga, designed especially for pupils and educators! Get your free trial at classyoga.com/welled.

Schools in the UK are now required to incorporate Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural development into the school day, but how do we do that, and more importantly how do we do it in such a way that it has a real benefit to your children and school?

Today my guest is Hayley McDonnell, teacher and SMSC expert. We discuss the massive benefit a well implemented SMSC programme can bring to your children, and some practical advice for school leaders, home educators, parents and teachers.

To connect with Hayley head on over to her website at: https://hayleymcdonnell.com

Visualisation is a powerful tool for all of us, including children. This week I have a special episode for you where I guide you through a visualisation to build a child’s confidence to share with your children.

Suitable for the classroom or home, children can be seated on chairs or the floor, or lying down.

To watch a video version & download the transcript to lead the visualisation yourself head to https://classyoga.com/confidence

Join me for this passionate conversation with International School Principal, Julia Knight!
We discuss:
- how and why wellbeing needs to be embedded throughout the whole curriculum
- why it's crucial to consider and enhance the wellbeing from our Early Years children
- why we must be the change-makers to allow our future generations to flourish
and so much more!

Find Julia at @KnightWilliams on Twitter and Julia Knight on LinkedIn 

Giving our children the time and permission to just be calm, relaxed and happy is such an amazing gift in this busy modern world of ours. In this special episode I have a calming guided relaxation for you to share with your children. This is great to do anytime, at home or in the classroom.

For a video version and a downloadable transcript to use yourself head over to https://classyoga.com/calming