Welcome  

Happy New Year to all our colleagues.

Traditionally this is a time for resolutions, vows to do things differently and in the spirit of this I offer the following 2 quotations. It's time to begin!!

 

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

"If all you can do is crawl, start crawling."  Rumi.

Join us for our 2014 online seminars

Wednesday 2 April - Managing Emotions

Thursdays 15 May - Communication

(All 1900-2000 hrs)

On these online seminars we will explore key issues of Emotional Wellbeing that can make all the difference to the success of our students and our experience of teaching them.

Your expertise will help students to deepen their understanding of themselves and each other, and develop their life skills. It will support their learning and their achievement, helping to narrow the gap.

All you need is an internet connection and a webcam. The webcam is not essential but it is great to be able to see each other as well.

Each interactive online seminar is from 7 - 8pm and each will be in 3 sections:

• Information and research
• Practical tools and techniques
• Questions and Answers

Cost: £25 per person per online seminar. £60 if you book and pay for all three.

BONUS: Get a free download from our Insight Series when you book, pay and show up.

Mindfulness

Chris Ruane MP speaking in Parliament last month: "Mindfulness is about living in the present moment and releasing the mind from the habitual ruminative patterns that lead to worry, depression and burn-out and it enables more intuitive and creative responses to new challenges. Given the centrality of attention in all mental functioning, such training has significant implications for mental and physical health, for self-regulation and for education.  

Chris's vision is to make Mindfulness training available for all young people from 4-18, and to be a part of all teacher training courses. Wow...that would certainly be transformative!

Mapping emotion in the human body 

 

New research conducted by scientists from Finland at the Aalto University, the University of Turku, and the University of Tampere that was published on the 30 December 2013, came up with interesting results. Participants recorded their perception of how their body felt when exposed to varying emotional states on an outline of the human body with a colour code.

The researchers compared the emotional reactions of Europeans with those of people from Asia and found no significant differences in the response of people from dramatically different cultures to emotion evoking situations. The result leads the researchers to conclude that emotion is felt in the same body regions in all humans. 

Emotional Wellbeing - a vital key for learning

The extension of the school leaving age means that FE colleges are now receiving applications from students who, in the past, would have left school at 16. As a result of this shift VisionWorks for Schools has been asked by Myscience to participate in a project where practitioners in the FE and Skills sector will be trained by us to use Emotional Intelligence skills in their teaching.

It has been apparent to us for some time that teacher training is key to implementing change in this area so we are excited at the prospect of working with different colleges where we can train practitioners and will have an opportunity to research the effects of our work.

We will keep you posted!                                                                      Janet Grant 

Now it's easy to stay in touch

VisionWorks for Schools now has its own Facebook page. All you have to do is like us and you will have regular updates of workshops, webinars, current EI news and more! We would love to hear from you too. 

Janet Grant

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