Words by Smiley Team
With schools closed yet again because of Covid-19, the mental toll of studying alone will hinder children’s education unless carers and teachers step in. Luckily, Eco-Schools, the world’s largest organisation working for school pupils’ well-being and environmental awareness, has launched a programme to achieve one million minutes of mindfulness in British education, with a guidebook of exercises for children to practice at home.
From January to June 2021, the programme will encourage schools to choose four weeks of term time for pupils to lead a series of mindfulness exercises. Offering guides tailored to different learning stages, the mindfulness activities may range from looking up at the clouds for a minute and observing their shapes, to posture exercises before studying.
Eco-Schools offers guides with a variety of ideas for further exercises, as well as planning templates for mindfulness sessions targeted at pupils in the early years, or at primary school, secondary school and college. Those helping children at home can benefit from their remote learning Mindfulness Minutes guide for families.
Manager of Eco-Schools Lee Wray-Davies explained: “The ideas and actions for our Mindfulness Minutes national call to action have not been rigorously assessed by a team of academics, but instead have been tried and tested with our own primary, GCSE and A-Level students in a ‘real’ school.”
She added: “Some of our ideas may not work for all your children but we hope that Mindfulness Minutes encourages hardworking eco-coordinators and their children to stop for just a minute and chillax - or smell the roses, whatever works for you.”
With the pandemic likely to continue till vaccines become available for young people; teachers and pupils alike should welcome this programme to encourage mindfulness. Covid-19 has hit mental health to an extent unseen since the second world war, exacerbating inequalities between those with previous conditions and those without.
Thankfully, Eco-Schools is not alone in tackling mental health issues throughout the pandemic. Initiatives like local Covid-19 Mutual Aid groups and Project Hope, a community coalition to tackle youth loneliness; have helped many people ride through these difficult times.
Besides their work improving the lives of young people, Eco-Schools focus on bringing environmental awareness to the school curriculum. Introduced in 1994 in response to the 1992 UN Rio Earth Summit, the organisation is overseen globally by the Foundation for Environmental Education and managed in England by Keep Britain Tidy.
Eco-Schools reaches 19.5 million children across 67 countries, making it the largest educational programme on the planet.
To help schools raise environmental awareness, improve their local environment, reduce carbon emissions and more, you can donate via their website. Your assistance will go directly to educational resources and support.
