Peace Battery – A Mindfulness and Meditation Program for Primary Schools

Description

Introducing Peace Battery – A Mindfulness and Meditation Program for Primary Schools Volume 1

In late 2018 the Australian Government launched the Australian Student Wellbeing Framework. The foundational document was created as a best practice guide for Australian schools in terms of establishing policies and facilitating student wellbeing so that each and every Australian child was equipped to reach their full potential.

Peace Battery is a guided meditation and mindfulness program designed to support primary school teachers in meeting the Australian curriculum in the area of health and wellbeing. Why teach mindfulness in schools? Bringing mindfulness and meditation to your classroom also brings the potential to deepen your relationship with your students. Humans have a basic need to belong and understand. You can support your own and the children’s learning through mindful awareness, make fascinating discoveries together and promote a lifelong love of learning.

Mindfulness sees us connect to our inner joy, the joy of simply being. When we stop and fully enjoy an experience, we connect to and feel true happiness. The more we do this, the more we preserve and enhance this ability to be joyful. We can tap into this place in times of difficulties and challenges. We have built ourselves a solid foundation – charged up our peace battery! A child’s peace battery, a solid foundation, is harmony within their emotional, social and psychological wellbeing. The flow on of this is an increase in their capacity to learn, to pay attention and to enjoy their time at school.

The program sets out regular learning intentions, allows for the children to gauge their success as well as offering opportunities for full class engagement.  This joyful and engaging learning experience supports children in finding their own unique ways to calm, self-regulate, and manage those anxious and stressful feelings. Emotional self-regulation is such an important life skill for children to master.

I have written this program with both teachers and children in mind, based on my past experiences working with adults and children. These experiences remind me of all the different approaches and all the different mindfulness and meditation in school techniques that can be applied. Meditation is not a one size fits all! Some people perceive more visually, some auditory, some more kinaesthetically. This program can be individualised to appeal to different kids in different ways. It is designed to be flexible, to be applied in moments that feel right, and to be used across all curriculum areas. It can enhance science, health, physical education, anatomy or art lesson. Use it to help refocus students after lunch, or when children become overwhelmed with big emotions. It’s a program where students can take control of their own learning and become aware of what they are learning.

This program is a wonderful enhancement to the curriculum and a way to meet what is required by the national standards. The main aim is that this is interactive and an engaging experience for all. Be spontaneous with mindfulness and meditation in school, it brings fun into the classroom and uplifts the mood. As you read through you will see it can be slotted into many moments throughout your week and the activities and meditations can be used over and over. Keep it light-hearted and enjoy this connective time for self-awareness along with the children, take your shoes off, get down on the ground and get comfortable! You might consider using a designated quiet area. It might be an existing reading space. An area that is designed in a fashion to support a calm atmosphere. It might have large cushions or bean bags for example. This can be utilised as a meditation space. When the children enter this space they can perform a routine act to remind them this is their mindful place, to return their awareness back to their breathing and their body. It might be that they take their shoes off before entering this place, bow like you would before entering a Karate Dojo – a simple sign of respect for the area and a reminder to be present.

When these lessons don’t go as planned, stop, don’t force it. Maintain your own presence of calm and breathe sitting calmly, breathing and practicing patience can have an incredible effect on the room. When you sit calmly, silently with a posture or composure of presence, this can allow the children to settle and follow your lead. When as adults we become focused on how it should be, we can run the risk of forcing this on the children, who at times can be like opposing magnets and bounce off this force with alarming strength! We’ve lost the moment of learning and entered a war! If some children seem disinterested and not engaged, let them be, it’s ok provided it is not a disruption, who knows, on some level they might be listening and absorbing!

Peace battery is a journey through social and emotional learning, where the children get to see, feel, taste, touch and hear the experience.  As active primary school learners, they can decide what works for them and what doesn’t. The program will be an experience that will see them inquiring within. Give them time to practice so they can look at how mindfulness and meditation in school can support them and how it might be useful.

This program is number one in a series! We can never have enough meditation and mindfulness! The coming programs will delve into other areas of mindful living that will enhance the relationship children have with themselves, with you and their classmates.

Further resources and meditations are also available from our shop page.

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Enjoy!