Mindfulness and Wellbeing
Mindfulness and Wellbeing are increasingly important facets of modern life with all its associated strains, stresses and pressure. The article below gives a little advice and guidance which might prove useful to us all.
Mindfulness: some thoughts
Mindfulness is about paying deliberate attention to what’s happening to your mind and body in the present time, not worrying about what you did ‘wrong’ yesterday.
When you practise mindfulness, and become fully aware of the present and the sensations around you, you wake up from auto-pilot mode and can fully cherish life. Your thoughts will become calmer, too. Practising mindfulness can help you appreciate the best bits of life.
“Mindfulness is about observation without criticism; being compassionate with yourself,” says Professor Mark Williams, former director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre and author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. “When unhappiness or stress hover overhead, rather than taking it all personally, you learn to treat them as if they were black clouds in the sky, and to observe them with friendly curiosity as they drift past. In essence, mindfulness allows you to catch negative thought patterns before they tip you into a downward spiral. It begins the process of putting you back in control of your life.”
Mindfulness can enable us to really enjoy the joyful moments of life which we can so easily miss.
It’s really important to take care of yourself.
We can practise mindfulness by simply sitting still and becoming aware of ourselves.
The brain can act like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. This negativity bias may have helped humans survive, but when it comes to modern life we need to consciously rebalance. When you feel stressed and anxious, try to press the pause button and consciously calm yourself.
Mindfulness doesn’t stop stress, but it helps you catch it and settle yourself.
Reading Volunteers
On the afternoon of January 18th 2017, another cohort of our year 12 students went to Handsworth Association of Schools Conference Centre, adjacent to Welford Primary School, to be trained as ‘Reading Volunteers’. The workshop entailed them working in groups to practice the best methodologies to support year 1 and 2 students with their reading skills. All fifteen students engaged in a variety of activities to share ideas and build their self-confidence. A number of case studies involving a teacher supporting a child with reading a book were looked at and students mapped out the best strategies to pitch their support at an appropriate level to the children.
This workshop was organised to help prepare our students to go out (in pairs) to an assigned primary school, every Wednesday afternoon, and support a minimum of 4 children with their reading skills. Through this programme, not only do our students give back to their community, they also learn new life-long skills such as how to speak to a child, how to teach a new skill to a child, patience, perseverance and many more.
Mr Ahmed
