Southampton HeadStart Pilot of Mindfulness in Schools Project: The effect of Paws b on behaviour and resiliency in children.

The goal of the HeadStart Mindfulness in Schools programme for primary schools is to help develop the emotional and mental resiliency of children. Mindfulness-based approaches within educational settings have been shown to have a range of beneficial outcomes such as increased wellbeing and improved academic performance. School teachers trained in mindfulness will deliver the formal six lesson Paws.b course within the school day as part of the PSHE curriculum. Children from 6 primary schools taking part in the Paws.b lessons (mindfulness group) and children who will not have the lessons (control group) will be will be asked to complete the Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire and the Headstart resilience measure before the start of the course and on completion. It is expected that those in the mindfulness group will have improved social, emotion and behavioural skills in comparison to the control group, and increased resiliency. Qualitative data will be collected during focus groups on completion of the course to explore how the children engage with mindfulness and use their skills in mindfulness in their daily lives. Findings from this project will be used to inform future interventions and to develop a whole school approach involving parents.