Yoga for Schools

Bespoke tuition available for your curriculum

There are many factors that affect a child’s educational experience:

  • Their natural affinity to academia versus practical experience
  • Their ability to form relationships with other children as well as adults
  • The size of classes and the level of discipline maintained in those classes
  • The facilities / resources made available to them by their family / the institution
  • Whether they school close to home or live away / board

If any of the above factors are limiting a kids ability to engage at school, yoga and meditation can potentially help the child to come to terms with the situation they find themselves in and move forward positively.

Are you qualified to work with children?

Yes absolutely!  All of our teaching team have completed nationally recognised yoga qualifications, which include in their syllabuses the study of physiology. This means that whether being taught in person or online, your students and their parents can be sure that they are in safe hands.  Further more, all of our team have also completed standard DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) checks, previously known as CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks.

If a child meditates, do they need to separately practice mindfulness?

In our experience , if the former occurs with an open heart, the latter will quite naturally follow. Indeed not behaving mindfully when you are away from “the mat”, can be likened to cooking a tasty meal, but not eating it. You’ve spent all that time preparing, but you’re missing the main event… And to some of us, thats just what life is, the main event, and it will happen to you, regardless of whether you appreciate or hide from it…

Our school is interested, how do we get started?

We start out by arranging an initial consultation that will take place on the phone or in person.  This will establish your requirements and timescales, the venue / space that we could use at your institution as well as payment options.  We would also take the opportunity to provide you with any support materials you may require when communicating with parents.  Because it is not practical to complete an individual face to face medical with each child before attending class we require the schools we work with to obtain written permission from parents for their children to attend class.  We can provide a letter template as well as supporting materials to facilitate this.

Where does yoga come from?  What is its history?

The origins of what we now call yoga cannot be pinned down absolutely, but It is generally accepted that the first people to formally practice meditation a core part of what yoga is, lived on the Indian subcontinent over 7,000 years ago.

Many people point to the view that meditation – which forms a huge part of Yoga – is a tantric practice originally followed by devotees of Shiva. Indeed the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, from the 15th century, states that it was developed by a tantric sage with the same name. Other written sources, such as the Shiva Samhita, claim the same thing. That is why in India, Shiva is called the King of Yoga. He is believed to have lived on the subcontinent during the first Vedic Aryan invasion of India over 7,000 years ago.

Subsequently meditation became integrated within wider Hindu society and overtime also became part of Buddhism, itself a development of that societies practices. Approximately 600BC, Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) reached “enlightenment” by meditating under a Bodhi Tree. The major break between Buddhism and Hinduism occurred, as Buddha’s followers did not believe meditation to be a means of getting closer to a higher being – a God, but rather as a means of realising one’s interconnectedness with all things.

More or less in parallel with the development of Buddhism, Daoism (also known as Taoism due historic issues in translation) was on the rise in China. Daoism, is a philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasises living in harmony with the Dao. Dao is a word signifying the “way” or “key”. Dao is the intuitive knowing of “life” that cannot be grasped whole-heartedly as just a concept, but has to be known through actual living experience of one’s everyday being.

Unsurprisingly, when followers of Buddhism and Daoism met, they had quite a lot in common, and started to adopt each others practices. Culminating in Zen Buddhism. Zen emphasises rigorous self-control, meditation-practice, insight into Buddha-nature, and the personal expression of this insight in daily life, especially for the benefit of others. It de-emphasises knowledge of texts, and favours direct understanding through Zazen – the nature of existence.

In more recent times people like Tirumalai Krishnamacharya studied the 196 Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and brought them to life for the modern world.  The 8 components or limbs of yoga Patanjali identified were later incorporated into Ashtanga Yoga by  Pattabhi Jois, a student of Krishnamacharya.  Ashtanga is one flavour of yoga among many, the classes tend to follow prescribed sequences that increase in difficulty as you move through the classes.  Yoga Wellbeing does not teach Ashtanga yoga specifically.  We put together specific classes that suite the requirements of each client.

Why take yoga classes, what can they offer?

  • Improvements to flexibility / less achiness
  • Better cardio vascular health
  • Improvements to concentration
  • Enhanced intuition
  • More aware decision making
  • Less attachment to habits like smoking