If you are a children’s yoga teacher or children’s well-being practitioner who would like to work in schools and you are curious about how this might look, then this is the blog for you! In this blog I’m answering some frequently asked questions about my children’s well-being business (Well-Being Adventurers) that works primarily in schools. If you are reading this blog in November 2024, there is currently a special offer on my e-courses and resource bundles. You can get get the School Yoga Teacher Bundle for FREE when you buy Captivate with Cards training and resource bundle. The trainings included in the School Yoga Teacher Bundle will be going up in price soon as they are being updated and more content will be added. Anyone who gets these now, will also have access to any future upgrades and changes. So it makes sense to get them at the lower cost. I know that the work that I do in schools is so beneficial to not only the children that I teach, but the wider community too as those skills ripple out to teachers, parents and carers. I truly believe that the skills that kids yoga teachers share with children can change the world. If you are here reading this blog, then it is likely that you feel the same. There is a limit to how many children I can reach by myself in schools, which is why I share my knowledge and experience with other well-being practitioners and children's yoga teachers. This is through free content, affordable training workshops, e-courses and resources and highly supportive mentoring. Together we can have a real impact on the future of humanity and I want to help others feel confident and supported enough to do this important work in schools too. In this blog, I’m answering some questions about my work in schools, in the hope that it helps other kids yoga teachers who would like to do this too. Where do you teach?
I live and work in Coventry in the West Midlands/ Warwickshire area of the UK. Most of my work is in this area but I do also travel to deliver specific workshops or training to schools in other areas. What types of schools do you work in? I usually teach in primary schools - although I also occasionally teach in nurseries or secondary schools for specific workshops. So the age range that most of my work is with is from school nursery age up to year 6- so age 3 to 11. What classes do you teach?The goal of my business Well-Being Adventurers is to improve physical, mental and emotional health through movement breathing and relaxation. This means that not all of my lessons are called ‘yoga lessons’. The vast majority of my work is within the school day teaching curriculum lessons. These could be focused on physical well-being in PE lessons, or mental and emotional health focus in PSHE lessons. For a long time, I also taught after school - lunchtime - before school clubs. Although I support other kids yoga teachers to do this, I no longer deliver these types of clubs myself. What does this look like? I teach regular, weekly classes for some schools as part of their PE curriculum- this is my reliable income that I know I can trust! I also deliver ‘well-being days’ which are whole school workshops planned around a specific theme, such as sports day or childrens’ mental health week. If you’d like to know dates that these type of events fit in well with- check out my ‘Special Dates Marketing Plan’ What group sizes do you work with? For the majority of the work that I do in schools, I teach full classes. This is usually up to 30 children. If you teach large groups like this and you struggle with managing the behaviour, or maybe you would like to teach this size of group but you are worried about managing the behaviour, check out the training ‘Tame the Crowd without Being Loud’, before it goes up in price. Or, if you are also interested in resources for your classes, you can get this free (along with lots of other training and resources) when you buy Captivate with Cards in November 2024. I do also teach small groups where I focus on the specific needs of the students. Small group work might consist of helping children deal with anxiety, helping children to grow in confidence or regulate emotions. Who pays you? For most of my work, I am paid by schools directly, but for some of my work (my small groups usually) I am paid by Mind, which is a mental health charity that does fantastic work in the UK. How does working in school work? Most of the time, I set up my mats in the hall, I stay there and the classes come to me on rotation. The timetable is fitted around breaktimes and lunchtimes, sometimes I create the timetable and sometimes the school does this. It really depends on the school's preference. Sometimes, I travel around the school and visit each class in their classroom- for example maybe the hall is out of action and I need to deliver a class based lesson. Or, I may be teaching a class based lesson, for example managing emotions during test times (you can get my free lesson plan for this here) How do you know what to teach? The kids yoga teachers who I mentor often struggle with knowing what to teach in classes that are within the school day. Kids yoga training courses rarely focus on this and it can feel daunting to know what to deliver. It is really important that the content that we deliver is aligned with the school curriculum. This can feel scary and is often a source of concern for those kids yoga teachers who would like to teach in schools. Being a previous school teacher has been a real benefit here, especially as I have been subject leader for both PE and PSHE. This gives me a strong foundation on which to build my lessons. In my own classes I follow objectives set out from the national curriculum. If this is something that you feel you would like support in, you might find Structure for Success a useful resource for you, get in now before the price increases. Or alternatively, you can get it for free with the Captivate with Cards training and resource bundle. As you teach so many children regularly, do you run out of ideas for your classes? In a word, no! I used to. In fact, I used to spend a lot of time planning my lessons each week and sometimes I would really struggle to think of new stuff. Also, trying to remember what each class had already learned with me! Sometimes I’d have loads of ideas and then other times it felt like my mind would go blank! This is why I developed my own progression routeway of poses. This is what is taught in the e-course Captivate with Cards. Using this has meant that I actually now spend very little time planning and I know that what the children learn in my lessons is high quality and builds on prior knowledge. If you’d like to learn more about this check out the training and resource bundle Captivate with Cards get this in November and you will also get free lifetime access to the School Yoga Teacher Bundle too! Do you need lots of resources to teach in schools? Not really no. You obviously need more of each pop if you are teaching larger groups, but I actually can’t remember the last time I bought new props as I use the same favourites over and over. You can get my free guide ‘Top of the Props’ this is where I list my favourite props and how I use them. You may also find the video 'Top Prop Tips' useful, here I give ideas and tips for using props. The e-course Props like a Pro gives a more comprehensive guide into using props to support extend and excite within your classes, you can get this before the price goes up, or, for November, get it for free when you buy Captivate with Cards. What documents do you need in schools? The document side of things can be a source of worry for us kids yoga teachers. We want to get things right and ensure that we have everything in place that we need to teach within schools safely. I have a free video on this which you can watch here. Also, don't miss the free checklist here. If you would like to save yourself some time and stress, you can access my own documents that I use in Well-Being Adventurers here in the Document Bundle again, the price of this will be increasing soon or, for November, you can get this free as part of Captivate with Cards. How can I work with you? If you are looking for some more tailored support, perhaps you’ve been asked to create a timetable for a school workshop and you don’t know where to start, or maybe you are working with a class that is hard to manage, or maybe you are second guessing what you are teaching. Why not book a meeting with me and I can help you with whatever you are struggling with in your kids yoga business. If you have any questions that you’d like me to answer, or, if you have any topic ideas, email me at [email protected]- I love hearing from other kids yoga teachers. If you are on facebook, make sure that you join the community of school yoga teachers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
From Julia
Hello! Thanks for being here. If you would like to feel more confident and organised teaching yoga to children, why not sign up to my email list? Archives
November 2024
|