Parent Corner

Year 10 Pastoral Guardian

Time to Unwind

Mission Australia, Youth Survey 2019 indicated that the top three personal concerns of adolescents aged fifteen to nineteen years were:

  1. Coping with stress
  2. School or study problems
  3. Mental health

The Year 10 cohort recently participated in a survey indicating that the top three personal concerns for them are:

  1. Stress of school
  2. Coping with the pressures of school
  3. Mental health

There is a strong correlation between the 25,000 respondents in the Mission Australia survey and the 150 respondents to the Mount Alvernia, Year 10 survey.  There is enough evidence to suggest that our young people value and aspire to do well; however their ability to cope with school and stress is the area of much need.

 

Further discussions with the Year 10s revealed that they would like time allocated in lessons to breathe, to be centred, and to feel connected.  Meditation and reading are proven practices that can offer great benefits to our students and, when implemented in lessons, can create positive mental health outcomes and coping strategies to stress. 

Research shows that meditation in the classroom:

  • Helps students to become more focused, calm, quiet, settled, and rested, by providing them an opportunity learn to relax and reflect.
  • Improves cognitive control and stress physiology amongst students – there is an increase in empathy, emotional control, and optimism, as well as a decrease in self-reported depression and aggression.
  • Can reduce cognitive test anxiety before examinations.
  • Enables students to increase their self-awareness and their perspective.
  • Can lead to students experiencing a transformation in their thinking and behaviour.
  • Improves attention and psychological wellbeing, and reduces internalising problems such as fear, withdrawal, anxiety, and depression.
  • Increases level of physical, mental, and emotional awareness.
  • Reduces stress, pain, anxiety, cardiovascular diseases, and insomnia.
  • Can result in improved emotional and mental stress, as neuroscientists suggest that the brain can be changed structurally and functionally through regular practice of mediation.

Smiling Mind, 2020, reported that meditation in schools is beneficial for both students and teachers.  Regular meditation and mindfulness practices lead to student engagement in learning and positive emotional wellbeing for students and, the more students practised, the more benefits they experienced over time.  

 

This week, with the support of Annette Butterworth, I launched the Year 10 Health and Wellbeing Initiative called Calming Our Year 10 Farm.  Given our Year 10s are in the midst of examinations and other assessment tasks, teachers of Year 10 have been encouraged to implement meditation into their lessons over the next three weeks, with an aim to implement this as an on-going classroom practice.  The advantage to the teachers and students is that conducting meditation at the beginning of a lesson will provide students with an opportunity to be calm, relaxed, and reflective, to reduce stress, to cope with the pressures of school work, to remove issues that may have occurred during the break, and to improve their cognitive performance during a lesson.  Implementing an initiative to support their wellbeing will ultimately improve their ability to perform in the classroom and in assessments.

 

However, this practice should not just be for school; it should also be implemented at home.  It would have the greatest impact just before bedtime, particularly after a night of studying or a difficult day.  Please encourage your daughter to try meditation before she falls asleep or as she is falling asleep.  Improving her ability to fall asleep and then to have a deep sleep will provide her with plenty of energy for the next day.  Our Year 10s need our constant guidance and support when it comes to health and wellbeing, and guided meditation is just one tool you can easily access and encourage her to do.

 

Listed below are the sites/apps that I recommend.  I have also included a yoga website that I promoted to the year 10s last week.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that a number of them have given it a go and loved it.  The combination of yoga and meditation would be a great inclusion to your daughter’s daily life.  You may want to try both with her.

 

 INSIGHT TIMER 

(Rated the Top Meditation APP on IOS and Android)

 

GUIDED MEDITATIONS: https://insighttimer.com/ 

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zen-timer-meditation-timer/id337472899?mt=8 (Free app available for IOS or Adroid)

 

SMILING MIND

GUIDED MEDITATIONS: https://www.smilingmind.com.au/ 

 

 

MUSIC: Smiling Mind (Naturescapes, Sea Grotto Sounds)

 

 

 

 

https://fiveparksyoga.com/

 

 

Conversation Starters

  • What happened during PD today (specifically for Thursday 3 September)?
  • Have any of your teachers implemented mediation to your lessons?  Did it have an impact?
  • Let’s download these apps and let’s try a meditation tonight as you fall asleep.

Tamara Richardson