Recent studies have shown that introducing Mindful Pausing in the classroom can create an improvement in pupil’s well-being and promote more mindful behaviour. With the pressures and stress of home and school being prominent in classrooms across both primary and secondary settings, utilizing mindfulness as part of the classroom environment can help pupils to focus on their academic lessons more easily and effectively. This is a significant claim that could produce dramatic changes in pupil productivity and was something that our group wanted to explore further and hopefully implement mindful techniques in our daily teaching environment.
Our aim was to compare the impact of similar techniques across a wide and varied cohort in both Primary and Secondary sectors of North Lanarkshire Council education. We hoped to achieve a marked improvement in our pupil focus and productivity in the classroom following mindful pausing activities.
Our Methodology involved using 3 key techniques;
Questionnaire – a short and direct quantitative tool to gauge pupils’ energy and focus at both the start and end of the lesson, in addition to an overall end of study summary.
Student Voice & Evaluation – this offered pupils a voice to comment on the effectiveness of the Mindful Pausing tasks and their overall opinion of the study.
Professional Observation – Through our own professional judgement we were able to report a short summary on each session of the study to gauge pupil focus, productivity and energy levels.
Overall, there was some improvement of pupil focus and involvement across our groups selected cohorts, however the consensus is that the study will need to be performed over a longer timeframe in order to impact pupils’ focus levels. While the effects of mindful pausing didn’t appear to transfer quickly to impact pupil focus, ultimately the goal is to improve focus levels in the long run. This goal should still be a priority for teachers, so further research and professional reading is highly recommended to ensure that all possible activities and resources are being trialled to give students a successful learning experience.