GRACE - Growing resources of awareness, compassion and empathy.
Summer Course for Teachers
4th - 8th July 2022 Monday to Friday
Reconnect and Remember essential skills for teacher wellbeing, resilience and social-emotional competence.
“What a great treasure it is when a person has realised that in them are to be found all the merits and all the faults which exist in the world, and that they can cultivate all that they wish to cultivate” - Hazrat Inayat Khan
If you are interested in taking time to review and grow skills for wellbeing, yours and your students, then this is the course for you. As our school year draws to a close, this live face to face summer course offers teachers a restorative and experiential space to attend to their own wellbeing in practical, experiential and connective ways.
The specially tailored course adopts a practical and collaborative approach and is designed and delivered by Dr Sheena Burke, Chartered Psychologist (Clinical & Educational) and Certified Mindfulness Teacher. The course is informed by the latest neuroscience and psychological research and 25 years of practice experience in community and school settings, there will be plenty of time and space for shared dialogue and experiential activities. The primary goal is to support you in refilling the well after another incredible year of serving others, while also integrating engagement with the SSE and Wellbeing Statement and Frameworks and working towards highly effective practice and indicators of success in wellbeing promotion at school.
As our education system evolves to acknowledge the significance of the relational component of effective teaching and to emphasise well-being and social-emotional learning outcomes in the curriculum, creating spaces to attend to teacher presence Is vital to deliver on these aspirations. The latest research shows there is a clear pathway for developing and advancing the skills necessary to respond to the complexity of demands in being a teacher today. Well-being is systemic, relational and local.
By practicing this particular set of evidence-based skills of awareness, compassion, empathy, reflection and resilience, teachers can increase access to the inner and outer resources needed to create and adapt approaches that help students to flourish socially, emotionally and academically. These skills can help to
• improve concentration and focus
• support emotional awareness and regulation
• facilitate the capacity to respond rather than react in challenging moments
• grow awareness of individual and collective stress management needs and responses
• apply these skills in the classroom, corridors, yard, staff room and home.
The immersive learning experience of this course offers you a pathway to remember and reconnect with the wise, compassionate and dynamic teacher within. You will experience both the ‘being’ mode of mindfulness in education, explore the ‘doing’ mode, for teacher and student wellbeing promotion and discover how
both approaches have a positive impact on learner outcome (Weare, 2021, Jennings, 2019, Lantieri, 2019). You will gain from the evidence-base that shows ‘mindful teachers teach social-emotional learning better’:
• Classroom culture and climate is improved
• Students are more engaged and productive
• Trauma-informed teaching is enhanced
• Student-teacher relationships are positively impacted
• Higher scores in maths and social behaviours, reduced aggressive behaviours
• The most disadvantaged benefit the most
• Teacher resilience is protected
The booking fee is non-refundable. All Summer Courses qualify for EPV days provided you complete the full course over 5 days. Blackrock Education Centre has the right to cancel a course if we DO NOT have the minimum numbers required.
