Parent Workshop
At International School Brunei we genuinely care how much our students know and equally how they feel. We want them to thrive academically and succeed in life. Our goal is to make them ready to tackle challenges in life; that is why their wellbeing is so important for us. Across the school, we have embedded a coherent and spiral Global Life Skills curriculum with a predominant focus on Social and Emotional Learning, Leuven Scales, zones of self-regulation and mindfulness.
What is wellbeing?
There are 5 main domains of wellbeing: physical (healthy habits, physical activity), emotional (emotional intelligence, positive attitude), cognitive (academic performance, professional life), social (social networks, belonging), mindful (being at peace with yourself).
Wellbeing is all about: how you feel about yourself; about the quality of your relationships; your ability to manage your emotions; how much meaning and joy you derive from your life; the experience of physical and mental health.
ISB Global Life Skills Curriculum
Global Life Skills (GLS) was written as a coherent and spiral curriculum that reflects the needs of our students at ISB and focuses on Social and Emotional Learning. The overarching concepts are taught year by year with different levels of complexity.
The areas of our GLS curriculum are represented by 6 different colours. Seen above, the purple colour represents social and emotional learning, light green is keeping safe, dark green economics and careers, orange physical health, blue represents Identity, society and equality, and, finally, maroon represents emotional wellbeing.
At key transition times, there is an intentional focus on social and emotional learning. The reason for this is to ensure our students are monitored closely during these crucial changes. We ensure that students are prepared for the change, equipped with key social and emotional competencies, such as resilience, self-regulation and empathy.
Leuven Scales
Leuven Scales were created by Ferre Laevers, a professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences who is the founder of the Expertise Center for Experiential Education. According to Laevers, high levels of both wellbeing and involvement allow children to experience deep learning. Practitioners should provide a safe and stimulating environment for students to experience operating at the very limits of their capabilities whilst being in the zone and displaying self-confidence, self-esteem, vitality and curiosity. And this is what we are focusing on across our Early Years provision.
Zones of Regulation
Zones of regulation is a systematic, cognitive behavioural approach used to teach self-regulation by categorising different ways we feel into four coloured zones. They are to teach students to become more aware of their emotions and impulses and independently control them; improving their ability to problem solve and resolve conflicts. The red zone describes intense emotions, like anger, rage; the yellow zone focuses on feeling anxious, nervous; the green zones shows a calm state of alertness, a person is happy, focused and ready to learn; when you are in the blue zone you’re feeling sad, bored or unwell.
Mindfullness and Multitasking
Living in an extremely fast-paced world, we need mindfulness now more than ever. In fact, we are so busy with the life, that we forget to check in with ourselves, we have no time for sleep, pleasures or rest as we are in a rush all the time. Our brains are overloaded by being constantly bombarded with information.
The average person in our modern world is exposed to more information during a single day than a person in XV century would have encountered in their entire lifetime.
To cope with that incredible pace, people tend to multitask, but it makes things worse as the human brain processes things one thing after another, not in parallel. Multitasking means attention switching. When we are doing that we are losing half a second and on top of that we miss any information presented to us during that time.
Say in your head letters from A to Z as fast as you can and now say numbers 1-26. Now say A1 B2, etc. Obviously, you are slowing down when you are switching letters to numbers. How did it feel? Were you stressed by doing so?
When we are multitasking we are attention switching which makes us less effective and productive as this is slowing us down, causing that we lose track of what we are doing and is creating unnecessary stress. So ask yourself how many times a day you multitask and multiply that by half a second… how much of your day is lost by doing so?
Further Reading
Digital Overload
An average person checks his phone for notifications 150 times a day (the highest users even 300)! Some research has found that if you are in the middle of doing something complex and you stop it to check your phone or an email, it then takes you 64 seconds to go back to what you were doing before. And in terms of concentration it takes an average of about 25 minutes (23 minutes and 15 seconds, to be exact) to be back in the flow after an interruption according to the latest research on digital distraction. So if you do that every 5 minutes in a 40 hour-week then you waste 8.5 hours in that week just by going back to your task let alone the time wasted on going back to the zone. Other research shows that if you have your phone on silent in a pocket and it vibrates but you don’t check it, however, you focus your attention on it vibrating, you make 28% more errors on a task you are engaged in. Distraction makes us less productive.
Further Reading
Time to Focus
All these examples were examples of unmindfulness. When you are unmindful, your body is in one place but your mind is somewhere else. You are not paying attention to what you are doing. Mindfulness is having our body and mind in the same place at the same time. Being fully present, engaged and aware in each moment. People tend to be more mindful when they are focused on what they love, what they are passionate about. When people are fully engaged, including their senses, it makes them happy and relaxed. When students are in the zone, studying and focusing on one subject, they are fully mindful. These are the experiences during which we are most productive.
Mindfulness means attention training. With mindfulness we focus our attention on the present through the senses. We notice when the mind wonders and we bring it back. It’s the nature of the mind to wonder. Harvard University research has found that we are distracted for almost half of our lives (46.9% to be exact). Microsoft conducted research couple of years ago and found that our average attention span now is 8 seconds. Mindfulness is not about getting rid of our thoughts, it’s about noticing when the mind wonders so we can bring it back without any judgement. The more we practise it the better we become at bringing our mind/attention back to what we’re doing. And we can apply it to anything in our life, like studying, work, etc.
Mindfulness also changes the brain. Harvard study has shown that through mindfulness the brain was able to create new gray matter as it stimulates new brain cell growth, which up until about year 2000, it was thought the adult brain couldn't do. Neuroscience shows that mindfulness improves executive functioning by strengthening the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, two key learning areas associated with memory, attention, reasoning and planning, managing our emotions, self-awareness and impulse control. Mindfulness also slows down the activation in the amygdala, the brain’s stress centre so that we are less stressed and anxious. And because we've got a “use it or lose it” brain, our amygdala actually starts to decrease in size. Research has shown that a grown prefrontal cortex and a reduced amygdala are seen on an x-ray of a long-term mindfulness practitioner.
There's even been effects on genetics. Research on mindfulness for telomeres, which are little caps at each end of our chromosomes, and probably the best markers of our biological age, has found that mindfulness switches on the repair enzyme and slows down the rate of ageing of the cells. So it basically, slows down the aging process. And this is what a researcher, Elizabeth Blackburn, received Nobel prize for in 2009.
There is a growing body of research, hence I am sure we will soon hear more astonishing facts about the benefits of mindfulness.
Mindfulness is becoming more and more popular in education. Mindfulness-based practices have been recently introduced to primary and secondary schools in the UK, India, the USA, and Australia. Research shows that mindfulness significantly supports students’ wellbeing: they are less stressed, anxious, emotionally dysregulated as they had been introduced to self-regulating techniques. Their academic performance has improved so have their attention and memory. They have better social skill as their self-awareness is much improved as well. Mindfulness helps students to develop metacognition and awareness of their feelings and thoughts. They start to notice the effect of their actions and words on themselves and others. This year we have also introduced mindfulness-based practices to children who respond extremely well to these.
Further Reading
Sleep
In making sure that we have a higher level wellbeing, we should focus on healthy habits, such as eating healthy food, exercising, and fitting in a good night sleep in our busy life. Being mindful also applies to being aware of the importance of sleep, which is pivotal to the wellbeing of the school-aged children. I’d like to bring your attention to the detrimental effects of a dysregulated sleeping pattern.
- Poor sleep affects cognition, concentration, productivity and performance. On the other hand, good sleep has been shown to improve problem-solving skills and enhance memory performance of both children and adults.
- Sleep loss reduces your ability to interact socially. Researchers believe that poor sleep affects your ability to recognise important social cues and process emotional information.
- Poor sleep is strongly linked to weight gain. In one extensive review study, children and adults with short sleep duration were 89% and 55% more likely to develop obesity, respectively.
- Not enough sleep may lead to long-term mood disorders, like anxiety and depression. It’s been estimated that 90% of people with depression complain about sleep quality.
Simple ways to improve sleeping hygiene:
- Develop a consistent sleep schedule. Your child should go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
- Have a consistent bedtime routine. Including calm and enjoyable activities, like reading a bedtime story.
- Turn off TV and other electronic devices. Make sure your child does not use his/her laptop, phone at least an hour before going to bad as the blue light that they emit tricks the brain into thinking it’s daytime hindering melatonin production so it’s harder to fall asleep because ‘you’re not tired’ and the sleep quality is rather poor.
- Avoid eating heavy dinner right before sleep time.
Further Reading
Positive Wellbeing
Positive wellbeing is fundamental to our overall health and happiness, it affects how well we can overcome difficulties and achieve what we want to in life. Wellbeing affects students’ engagement with learning, their social and emotional behaviour and their overall satisfaction with life at school and beyond. Over the last decade, researchers have discovered that people with higher levels of wellbeing are kinder, more sociable and energetic, more cooperative, and better liked by others. They show more flexibility and are more productive in their jobs. They are better leaders and negotiators and earn more money. They are more resilient in the face of hardship, have stronger immune systems and are physically healthier and happier.
Team around the child @ ISB
At International School Brunei we have a very strong pastoral team composed of Teachers, Learning Assistants, Learning Support Assistants, Heads of Year, School Counsellors, Nurses and the Primary Leadership Team. They are all here to oversee the wellbeing of our students as well as the staff. Their day-to-day role may differ but they are here to create a healthy school atmosphere in which the children feel safe and happy, know they are valued, academically challenged, and that their personal, social and emotional development is nurtured. Class teachers are responsible for making links between a child’s social and emotional wellbeing and their academic progress. They provide pastoral care for their students. Heads of Year focus on safeguarding, student attendance, behaviour, wellbeing and academic achievement. Our school counsellor is always available to offer advice to students, parents and staff at crucial turning points in their lives. The counsellor works closely with the Teachers, the Primary Leadership Team and the parents to maximize learning outcomes, ensure positive wellbeing or liaise with external agencies to deal with students' concerns if they cannot be dealt with at school. Finally, our Primary Leadership Team oversees cognitive, social, emotional, and physical wellbeing of the student body, their safety and healthy growth. Their absolute priorities are safeguarding and child protection.
Wellbeing Week
The Wellbeing Week this year was truly special as we celebrated it at full-speed and again the community did not disappoint! The spirits were high and the pupils’ involvement level was skyrocketing. Our Seesaw platform was stretched to the limit being bombarded with a multitude of fabulous entries from our students across the whole primary. It was heartwarming to see the community readily engaging from the comfort of their homes in a plethora of self-care activities for the mind, body, and soul. The overwhelming spirit of self-loving raised the profile of “it’s all right not to be all right’’ and allowed us all to slow down and refocus. Through guided visualisations, art projects, uplifting physical exercises, and self-appreciation stories we mindfully focused on ourselves deriving genuine pleasure from it. Our ISB community had a blast during the Wellbeing Week and we promise it was just the beginning of our wellbeing journey this year.
Seesaw Photos
The Wellbeing Week this year was particularly eventful, providing an array of first-rate activities aiming to raise awareness of wellbeing and its overarching concepts. It was wonderful to see both students and staff so readily engaging in a variety of exciting activities including Zumba, Yoga, Karaoke, mindfulness breathing, Mandala colouring, and the spectacular Wushu. The choice of activities should not be surprising as they all contribute to our general welfare by reducing stress, advancing self-regulation skills, boosting confidence, and improving mental alertness as well as cardiovascular health. During the fun-filled week the ISB community was focusing on random acts of kindness and the importance of being kind to others as well as ourselves. No doubt, the week provided ample opportunities to let everyone experience how cool it was to be kind. Within class and whole school activities, the profile of wellbeing was raised, offering a range of complexity in defining it: from ‘’being happy and healthy’’ in EY, through “ability to manage your emotions” and “quality of your relationships” in KS1, and “feeling fulfilled and in good shape to tackle everyday worries’’ in KS2, to “how much meaning, joy and satisfaction you derive from your life” amongst teachers. The five days of wellbeing celebration was the time for kindness, the right mindset, and reflection on how I wanted to live my life to ensure good health, happiness, and success. Now as the week is over, we are hopeful that wellbeing will continue to be embedded in ISB culture and will be cultivated by all the kind, wise and compassionate choices we make to nurture our health and happiness, including our thoughts, our actions, the ways we care for our bodies, and the support that we provide for others.