INTRODUCTION TO
MINDFULNESS FOR
SCHOOLS
Jeremy Morris
Educational Psychologist and Cognitive Behaviour Therapist
Outline
Mindfulness: What is it?
How does it help?
How do we get there?
The Mindfulness Attention Programme
(MAP)
Let’s have a go?
WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?

Mindfulness means paying attention to what’s
happening in the present moment in the mind, body
and external environment, with an attitude of
curiosity and kindness.
Report by the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG) 2015
Where is your attention NOW?
HOW DOES IT HELP?

Reducing worry and rumination
Mind Wandering
Experience of sampling results connected to Mindfulness
The frequency of mind wandering in a real-world sample was
considerably higher than is typically seen in laboratory experiments.
Surprisingly, the nature of people’s activities had only a modest impact
on whether their minds wandered and had almost no impact on the
pleasantness of the topics to which their minds wandered
First, people’s minds wandered frequently, regardless of what they
were doing. Mind wandering occurred in 46.9% of the samples.
Mood Congruence


Happy moods lead to increased number of happy
memories retrieved and increased speed of
retrieval
Sad mood likewise
Cutting worry/rumination short
Improved
Mood
Mindfulness
Rumination
Schonert-Reichl, et al. 2015


4 classes of combined 4th and 5th graders (N 99)
were randomly assigned to receive a social
responsibility program that included mindfulness,
versus a regular social responsibility program.
Measures assessed executive functions (EFs), stress
physiology via salivary cortisol, well-being (selfreports), pro-sociality and peer acceptance (peer
reports), and math grades.
Schonert-Reichl, et al. 2015






Relative to children in the social responsibility program, children
who received the program with mindfulness:
(a) improved more in their cognitive control (Flanker task) and
stress physiology (Salivary cortisol);
(b) reported greater empathy, perspective-taking, emotional
control, optimism, school self-concept, and mindfulness,
(c) showed greater decreases in self-reported symptoms of
depression and peer-rated aggression,
(d) were rated by peers as more prosocial, and
(e) increased in peer acceptance (or sociometric popularity).
How do we get there?

Mindfulness involves being more in the present.
Letting go more readily of our worries about the
future and our ruminations on the past

BUT how do we get there?

MAP
Course Outline
Sessions 1 & 2
Focus
On breathing and
the body
Anchor
•
•
•
In the present
Session 3 & 4
Widening the angle
Foreground and background – noticing feelings and judgments
Sessions 5 & 6
Holding on and Letting go
Sessions 7 & 8
Facing the difficult
And Summary
And Practice:
Meditations in class and guided meditations to download
• Meditations in class
• And/or guided meditations to download
Experiment: The Statue
Which part of the body did you notice most?
And what type of
things distracted you most?
 Perhaps have a go at eating one thing mindfully – maybe something you enjoy. If you
wish you can fill in the table in the workbook. Or perhaps just slowing down right at the
start of a meal and focusing on the first two mouthfuls.
 Please listen to the first home practice– the Body Scan. This is often really relaxing to do,
and great to do in bed before you go to sleep. Please give it a go as best you can, perhaps
three or four times, and let me know what you think next week. You can find the
download here:
http://www.
 Thank You
Summary



Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose to the
present moment in a particular way.
There is a good evidence base for its helpfulness
with adults and an improving one with children.
It has potential both to support negative emotions
(such as anxiety) and develop positive ones.