Welcome to the course

After a difficult period dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, taking care of our mental health has never been more important.

Adapting to ever-changing guidelines, navigating lockdown learning and implementing social distancing in the classroom have all taken a toll on students and teachers alike.

About the course
Mindfulness Through Film has been developed to equip educators with strategies to guide young people who are approaching changing or challenging circumstances. Whether it be school transitions, exam preparation or other social and emotional issues, mindfulness is a tool that can be beneficial in a range of situations.

This course is also very much about promoting your wellbeing as an educator. In a number of studies involving teachers, researchers found that regular mindfulness practice reduced stress and burnout¹. Add to that the link between teacher wellbeing and student wellbeing², it is clear that your mental health is paramount as well.

We’ll explore how film can help you and your students tap into the wealth of benefits of mindfulness, such as:

• Enhancing focus
• Promoting self-regulation
• Increasing resilience
• Improving interpersonal skills.

Course content
The activities in this course are designed to slot into your busy timetable. They can be used as standalone tasks for short PSHE and form/pastoral sessions, or cherry-picked to incorporate into longer lessons. We will cover:

• Finding stillness – a strategy to help us control our thoughts and impulses
• Sensory awareness – the key to connecting with the world around us
• Emotion regulation – a path to self-compassion and better relationships.

We’ll share activity sheets and other resources as you work your way through the course. You can use them to help support your learning as you engage with the activities, as well as with your students back in class. You can download them in a single PDF on the opening and closing steps of each week. They will also appear as individual files on the relevant steps.

At the end of the course, you will come away with a bank of film-based strategies to enrich mindfulness practice with your learners and the confidence to implement them.

Who will you be learning with?
Experts from the fields of mental health, education and film/filmmaking helped create the course. You’ll get to hear from them as the course progresses. You’ll be supported throughout the entire course by:

Chevonne James – Senior Learning Coordinator at Into Film, teacher and one of the educators on this course

Alexia Weeks – Training Manager at Into Film, and one of the educators on this course.

Disclaimer
This course is not designed to be a substitute for treatment or therapy. Those who are dealing with physical and mental health problems should always seek support and advice from trained professionals. Visit the NHS mental health services website for further information on support available in the UK.

¹ _{Emerson, L. M., Leyland, A., Hudson, K., Rowse, G., Hanley, P., & Hugh-Jones, S. (2017). Teaching Mindfulness to Teachers: a Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis. Mindfulness, 8(5), 1136–1149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0691-4}

² _{Harding, S., Morris, R., Gunnell, D., Ford, T., Hollingworth, W., Tilling, K., Evans, R., Bell, S., Grey, J., Brockman, R., Campbell, R., Araya, R., Murphy, S. & Kidger, J. (2019). Is teachers’ mental health and wellbeing associated with students’ mental health and wellbeing? Journal of Affective Disorders, 242, 180-187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.08.080}