Wellbeing in Year Two

In the year two neighbourhood we have started weekly wellbeing sessions called Circle Time which provide children with a safe and warm environment to speak about any feelings or issues that they would like to share within their home group context. We will be using it as an active teaching time for Social and Emotional Learning, along with our daily meditation after lunch. 

Circle time can be used to respond to specific issues that arise related to wellbeing in the playground or in the neighbourhood or it can take a focus where children are invited to speak about a particular topic such as:

I sometimes feel jealous because ......
I work best when ......
I feel happy when ......
I feel angry when .......
A goal I would like to achieve is ......
How do I feel when I put others down?
How do my friends feel if I put them down?

0. The Golden Rules of Circle Time
   These are the rules by which circle time will proceed most effectively. Ideally the pupils could make up their own rules although there are some rules which are sacrosanct. Such as:
   
• You can only talk when you are holding the talking stick (with
  younger children this should be a soft toy). At Key Stage 2 the talking
  stick could be a shell or other object of interest.
  
• Everybody listens when someone else is speaking
  
• Everybody has the chance to speak
  
• Always keep the circle shape
  
• Everyone has the right to pass
  
• Listen respectfully to what a person says
  
• Children may disagree with a statement but no one should be put
  down
  
• No statement or answer is wrong
  
• Nobody should be mentioned by name (it is not a “kangaroo court”)
  
• Children can only talk about their own issues, not someone else’s. 
  

In addition to these ongoing and embedded wellbeing times in our neighbourhood, we also respond to need by adding additional wellbeing workshops into our timetable.

This week, the children have had workshops around common problems that can occur (particularly rough play and exclusion) during familiar games in the playground such as tiggy, down ball, imaginative games, footy/soccer, etc. The children are working in small groups with others whom they might not normally play with to develop a creative expression of how to prevent issues during such games. Some children are creating an animation, others are developing plays and skits with storylines and narration, others are drawing comics and illustrations/posters. We will aim to post some of their creations on the blog in the near future.


If you would like to read more about Circle Time or The Smiling Mind Please visit

http://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/introducing_circle_time.pdf

http://smilingmind.com.au