Student Wellbeing Curriculum

Developed by: Quest Alliance

Why?

Wellbeing is the experience of health and happiness physically, emotionally and socially. In our curriculum for student well being we shall focus on student’s mental, emotional and social health. We intend to focus on practices that generate good feelings and help connect with a support network socially and find meaning for self in it.

This Curriculum will not just help with wellbeing but also serve as a short bridge to move towards regular school life post the COVID lockdown ends and the schools reopen. This curriculum includes lighter sessions, self-to-do activities, sharing and bonding opportunities and well-being focused tasks.

The lockdown due to COVID-19 led to a sudden closure of Schools and regular life in general. There are diverse socio-economic impacts and children are an important group hugely impacted by this crisis. During this time, it is likely that there might have been an absence or lack of opportunities for children to share any anxieties, thoughts of uncertainty or feel a sense of community. There would be a need to rebuild the gap of children’s relationship with the school and the school community – teachers, friends, facilitators. The schools including teachers, children and the community may take time to get back to the routine. The Curriculum can help towards rebuilding relationships with children, help them open-up, engage and bond again with the larger school ecosystem, open conversations around coming back to school, resuming studies, activities and support getting back to the routine. They have been designed keeping the need of student well-being in mind.

What?

Stretches and Warm-Ups – The Stretches and Warm-ups mentioned are short exercises to lighten and open-up before any other activity that may be planned. They can also be used as energizers at different points of time.

Think-Write Worksheets – The worksheets presented as a folder along with this document are designed for the period of lockdown and beyond. These are 1-2-page writing based activities which cover general themes related to life during the times of COVID.

As the virtual engagement grows we shall develop more worksheets on the SFG curriculum.

Mindfulness Activities and Worksheets – 5 basic Mindfulness activities are presented which can be easily done with children (with some prior practice!). There is also a workbook for help and Mindfulness Activities developed by other organizations.

Activity Pool – The activity pool consists of a range of things from storytelling, crafts, to group bonding exercises, listening, talking and sharing exercises.

Outdoor Energizers – Towards the end we have some outdoor energizers which can be used as time and space permit.

HOLDING IT TOGETHER: A NOTE FOR THE FACILITATOR

We had called out the rationale of the Curriculum at the beginning of this document. This curriculum is suggestive and can be best worked out if the ground reality is mapped and a calendar is accordingly worked out when schools reopen.

The Facilitator here along with the Teacher can play a key role of holding it all together. It would be important that while the activities are chosen and planned the norms of physical distancing, hygiene and safety are not compromised with. Children need not be forced to participate and this should be kept voluntary. The need and situation of children and their families in different regions may not be the same.

As a Facilitator, it may be important to support children and teachers as they engage in these activities. The correctness of an activity outcome is not important here at all but the process of engaging in it and feeling the process. Facilitator can emphasize this. If at times, participation stumbles, facilitator can take lead to themselves present an example and help others proceed.

As this curriculum is implemented in the schools, it would be good to document and record some activities, have some pictures and preserve the responses in the form of art and writing that children and teachers create. Some of these can also be displayed at the school in the week that they are created so everyone gets a chance to engage with what happened and stay with it for sometimes. Later children can also be encouraged to take these home.

Some of these can later be even a source for further plan and be a learning for us.

It would be important to go through this document first in order to clearly plan and organize it for implementation. Lastly, it would be very important to generate energy, excitement and cheer around the activities and feel calm and energized oneself.

Do practice some of the Mindfulness tasks we have outlined here!