Welcome to 2018 – the term is well and truly in full swing.
Over the past months the college team has been working on developing our three-year strategic plan, part of which is to focus on how we can ensure our college meets the needs of our students by creating an environment that offers both emotional support and addresses social developmental needs. Connected to this is the fact that I have had many internal conversations as to why we do yoga and I thought it might be time to share the core intent of incorporating this ancient practice into our programs.
When the college was founded I wanted to work out how we could create an environment where our students were taught to take control of their mental state, knowing personally the benefits this can bring. I have had some experience with yoga and in searching for tools that would help our students learn self- control techniques we decided that yoga not only affords meditative well-being but also brings significant physical benefits. Essentially two bangs for our buck! Beyond this yoga is an accepted practice without stigma and we believed it would be a great addition to our program.
For the past five years yoga has been a weekly practice for our students. At the start of this year we did a complete review and affirmed our core intent. Our primary teaching staff rolled out a mindfulness program at the end of 2017 and are continuing to develop this into a number of short, sharp meditative practices which we believe will bring significant benefits to our students in many aspects of their lives. With that in mind, we decided to rethink in which part of the day yoga sessions would be most beneficial.
The exciting news is that we have now created drop-in times for all of our students in the middle of the day (with up to three sessions available). In consultation with their teachers, the students are able to take part in yoga sessions more often, ensuring those who have a need for this support can access it on a more frequent basis. It is so great to see our staff continuing to work together to create that environment where we know our students can flourish and give them the tools to navigate those tricky teenage years. Yoga is still part of our sports program in our high college and our primary students have access to yoga sessions via our drop-in sessions as well as daily meditation practices.
We look forward to a hugely successful year in 2018!
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