The past few weeks have seen the staff and students of SVPS focus on their wellbeing, through activities like circle times and metacognition. This week we find out how Year 5 have been addressing their wellbeing through Mindfulness Club:

“A group of Year 5 children continue to enjoy Mindfulness Club on Thursdays after school. Since the beginning of the term, we have explored how to practise ‘being in the moment’. We did this by eating Minstrels chocolates! We slowly explored our five senses as we looked carefully at, touched, smelt, tasted and slowly ate our sweets. The children found that this was a very good way to become completely present and aware.  Each session we practise our meditation and last week we did our first Body Scan which helps us to really become aware of how we are feeling. 

A favourite activity is the Mind Jar.  This was introduced to the children by reading a book called Moody Cow  A little cow called Peter has a terrible day which started with a bad dream about a three-eyed alien; next, his sister drew all over his new skateboard so Peter pulled her tail and then she tripped him up and he fell down the stairs. He then cut the hair of his sister’s doll and got into trouble and then he missed the school bus. Poor Peter – his day just continued getting worse and worse and he was so grumpy that his friends called him ‘Moody Cow.’ Peter could not take it anymore. He was so angry, he threw his ball through the window of his house. Mum could see how angry and upset Peter was and decided to get Grandfather to come round and teach Peter all about using a Mind Jar to calm himself down and make him feel better. 

We now do this every week in Mindfulness Club and the children can talk about how they are feeling about their week and what is happening with them. Lots of glitter goes in the jar and represents our various thoughts, feelings, and emotions.  It all gets shaken up in the water, and as we watch the glitter settle, we breathe and calm our minds.  All our thoughts and feelings are still in our minds, but there is distance and clarity, and this helps us to respond rather than react. Miss Corkran joined us this week and enjoyed putting her thoughts and feelings glitter into the jar!  We all felt calm as we watched the glitter slowly settle to the bottom of the jar.”

Madame Buttle