DAVID UNWIN/Stuff
A group of Foxton Beach School pupil lie down under a tree to listen to a Pause, Breathe, Smile mindfulness track.
Children at a Horowhenua school are building resilience and learning how to deal with their emotions through a charity programme.
Pause Breathe Smile is a charity that teaches mindfulness-based wellbeing skills to schoolchildren aged 5 to 12. It helps them regulate emotions, build self-awareness and relate positively to others.
The programme has reached more than 90,000 children in 323 schools, including Tokomaru, Parkland and Foxton Beach schools.
Pause Breathe Smile research showed positive behaviour in classrooms had increased by 12.4%, negative behaviour had decreased by 10.1%, general student wellbeing was up 16.6%, the number of pupils flourishing increased by 8.1% and the numbers languishing reduced by 8.3%.
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Foxton Beach School teacher Rebecca Lock is a huge believer in the programme and giving children tools to cope with challenges. She runs a couple of sessions a week.
She said it was a tool to use when the children were having difficulties or were worked up and could resettle. They can “drop their anchor”.
One of the techniques, used when Stuff visited the school, was the children sat or lay down and listened to a mindfulness track, paid attention to their breathing and tried to become calm.
“You’ve got to persevere and get through the pit,” Lock said. “The pit is when things are hard, you’re down in the learning pit, but you’re OK to be there because you come back out.”
A growth mindset, learning how to control things, tackling challenges with a positive mindset and “the power of not yet” are other techniques. There is a time and place for all feelings.
“Things get better if people be good to each other.”
DAVID UNWIN/Stuff
Foxton Beach School pupil Daisy Nicklin takes part in a Pause, Breathe, Smile mindfulness session.
Pupils Isaac McLellan, 9, and Maycee Bull, 10, take part in the programme.
“I feel nice and calm if I’m really anxious,” Maycee said. “If someone’s been annoying me I come in and feel way better.
“I sit down and think about the worries and get them out of the way.”
Isaac said when listening to the mindfulness track he would close his eyes, listen to the instructions and block noise.
“After I come in and feel rarked up in the playground at lunchtime, I come down and relax myself after.”
They have also harnessed the techniques when struggling to do their work.
“When I say to Miss Lock ‘I’m not going to be able to do this’, she says ‘not yet’,” Maycee said.
Both pupils thought the techniques could be applied as they got older.
Lock discovered the programme when looking into wellbeing and resilience, and its use had grown at the school.
She is also an across-school teacher in the Horowhenua Kāhui Ako (community of learning) and has been encouraging other schools to take part.
