While I was studying for my Master’s degree, I designed and conducted a study to delve into mindfulness and teacher well-being. Teachers’ emotional regulation and management of stress, has been shown to be an important factor in influencing the way children in their care feel and learn to process and regulate their emotions.

A pilot study to examine the impact of teaching a mindfulness programme (The Present for Schools), which is embedded into the curriculum and daily life in school, on the teacher’s own level of mindfulness and wellbeing.

(accredited by the University of Bangor’s Centre of Mindfulness Research and Practice)

The results from this study suggest that delivering a fully integrated mindfulness curriculum, which can be tailored to the needs of both teachers and children, may be instrumental in improving the mindfulness levels, self-compassion, perceived stress and mental wellbeing of teachers. Even though this is a small pilot study, it is hoped that these positive implications for the improvement of teachers’ mental health, are worthy of further investigation, in order to provide insights into how to increase and sustain this wellbeing in teachers. This is especially important at a time when we are hearing of unprecedented reports of teachers under stress (Long & Danechi, 2021). An important consequence may be the likelihood that this approach has positive and long-term benefits for teachers, which in turn, will enhance children’s wellbeing and learning.

Summary of Methods, Statistical Analysis and Findings.

Ten school staff were recruited, who had previously completed an eight-week Mindfulness Based Programme: seven teachers and three teaching assistants (age range of 25 to 59). In this quantitative within group repeated measures design, data was collected at three time points: pre-training, post-training and two month follow up. Participants also completed frequency/type of mindfulness practice questionnaires at two-week intervals. The results showed significant changes on all measures from pre to follow-up: mindfulness levels (p= .007); mindfulness in teaching (p= < .001); wellbeing (p= .001); self-compassion (p=< .001); and perceived stress (p= .001). Large significant correlations were found between the change in mindfulness levels and wellbeing, and mindfulness levels and self-compassion, from pre-training to follow-up. Acceptability ratings were high for delivery of the programme and participants reported noticeable increases in their frequency of informal mindfulness practice within school. These findings indicate that the delivery of an Mindfulness Based School Intervention, which is integrated into all aspects of the school day, may increase the mindfulness levels and wellbeing of those that deliver it. Future, larger research projects are needed to further investigate these promising, initial findings.