About Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP)
Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP) is an international, not-for-profit charity for young people and schools. Our aim is to improve the lives of a generation of children and young people by making a genuine, positive difference to their mental health and wellbeing.
Our view is that everyone deserves to not ‘just get by’ but to positively flourish. By introducing key skills to help young people, and those who care for them, to work more skillfully with what comes their way, we observe real shifts in how they navigate the difficulties in life, as well as engaging more positively with the opportunities that arise.
Our charity, Mindfulness in Schools Project, is the most established provider of mindfulness training for schools, delivering world-leading curricula for classroom-based mindfulness. Our materials are based on rigorous research in clinical psychology and neuroscience, written by teachers for teachers, and used successfully in a wide range of educational contexts.
Over the past ten years we have established our reputation for providing the gold standard of mindfulness training and materials for the class room. We ensure that our schools can access the most professional, proven training programme which can be securely embedded so that young people truly benefit from what they are being taught. Now the leading provider of school-based mindfulness, we deliver well-researched, in-depth curricula and materials for schools and train teachers to deliver them. Our courses are written by teachers, for teachers and succeed consistently with all types of pupils, according to both the research evidence and overwhelmingly positive feedback.
We have built a network of thousands of trained teachers in the UK and beyond. We work closely with leading experts and academics and are proud to be backed by the National Association of Head Teachers, which represents 30,000 school leaders.
In addition to schools, our curricula have been used successfully in a wide range of other educational contexts too – from youth clubs and sports clubs, to Pupil Referral Units and young offender institutes.
MiSP also supports research and policy-making around mindfulness and education, and consulted on the Mindful Nation UK Report 2015, arising out of the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group.
History
When MiSP was established in 2009, there were no classroom-based curricula available in the UK to teach children the skill of mindfulness.
But research into its benefits, and how it could be used to help young people manage their thoughts, feelings and impulses, was beginning to grow.
This was the context in which MiSP conceived .b (‘dot-b’, which stands for stop and be) for 11-18 year olds.
Then, in 2013, Paws b was introduced to provide materials for use with 7-11 year olds, in response to the increasing interest from teachers who wanted a curriculum designed specifically for primary schools.
A year later in 2014, .b Foundations was developed as an accessible eight-week introduction to mindfulness for school staff and those working in education.
.begin – a live, online eight-week introduction to mindfulness – was created in 2017 for those who would otherwise be unable to access traditional eight-week group courses for adults due to school budgets, time, geographical or mobility issues.
In 2019 we launched our .breathe curriculum as a one-day introduction to mindfulness for teachers and a four lesson curriculum for 9-14 year olds.
In 2021, dots was introduced as a mindfulness curriculum for children aged 3 – 6. dots has been developed in collaboration with experienced teachers in a range of schools and settings.
Most recently, in 2024, MiSP was delighted to become the official provider of The Present. The Present is a spiral curriculum for children aged 3-12 and the adults working with them initially developed to complement Paws b with an emphasis on bringing awareness to weaving mindfulness practice to daily life in our settings. The Present was developed by the long-standing and well-respected not-for-profit organisation, The Present Courses CIC.
Our Charitable Aims
MiSP is dedicated to improving the lives of a generation of children by making a genuine, positive difference to their mental health and wellbeing.
MiSP offers a toolkit that builds resilience and coping mechanisms for children and young people and those who care for them, whatever adversities they face.
It teaches mindfulness as a life skill that children and young people will use into adulthood, enabling them to flourish and be at their best. For the schools we work with, our approach helps them to educate the whole child and build strong foundations in mental health that prepare them for the future.
MiSP’s vision is that every child should possess the skills to help them manage difficulty and flourish, with an understanding of how and when to use those skills.
We want to reach out to more disadvantaged and diverse communities than we do today with our current subsidised places on MiSP training courses.
How you can help
We know that if we do not make children’s mental health a priority today, the problems we are seeing now – in classrooms, colleges, universities and beyond – will only get worse.
We aim to reach as many schoolchildren and educators as we can with quality mindfulness training, but we can only achieve this with your help!