- Name: Nicola Beattie
- Role: External mindfulness teacher
- Location: Liverpool
- Age range of students: 6-11
- Number of students: 154
- Number of classes: 6
- Percentage pupil premium: 43.9%
- Percentage SEND/SEMH: 25.6%
- Percentage EAL: 27.2%
- Number of staff trained to teach mindfulness: 1
It was early 2020 when I was invited to submit a short case study outlining my experiences as an independent teacher of MiSP curricula.
I’d just begun to engage with schools across Liverpool and East Lancs a couple of years earlier and was exploring the development of my own practice. All was shiny and new and exciting. Schools were getting on board and I was seeing the impact with the children. We came out of winter and spring was around the corner. What could possibly go wrong?
I can still feel the sensation in the pit of my stomach that I felt on that day in March 2020 when I rocked up as usual to a small village primary school in East Lancs to be met with Y3 staff and children in a classroom with empty desks and empty trays and scrubbed surfaces and no laptop or keyboard or pencils or pens or paper. We were 5 lessons in to Paws b. I had my snow globe and weebles. I had a singing bowl. Most of all I had the benefit of the best quality training from MiSP. I had my practice and, on that day, together we learnt finger breathing. No tech. No paper. Just the children and teacher and me. I had never been so keenly aware of the importance of what I was doing, then, in that moment, as a teacher. It would be another 2 years before that same group and I met again to restart and continue and complete our Paws b journey together…. but we did.
During the following months of uncertainty, one of the only few knowns was the regular sit provided by MiSP. Opportunities for reflection and development and community. I’ll always be grateful. The “empty” days and gaps and spaces afforded opportunities for my own practice to grow and deepen too. I have a “variable” recollection of those times; however, I’m convinced I was able to savour the good stuff and manage the less good stuff and maintain a vision of the future well enough to mean that I was equipped to return to schools once they were all fully open again with a different sense of “why”.
So, schools (which we all know had never been closed) opened all their doors wide again and we picked our way through sprays and steamed up visors and distancing and all that stuff and I was able to re-engage with settings and begin to work for the first time in a long time with others. Then in February ’21 I experienced the wonderful world of Dots through online training. At this point I knew I wanted to “get in early” with Mindfulness, however I was also wrestling with the (old and unhelpful belief) that I didn’t work with our youngest children.
My Head was full of advice like “Outside your experience…not trained…stick with what you know…you’ll be eaten alive…”. My Heart had other ideas though, and I followed it. I put my trust in my trainers and their skill and the integrity of the programme and all the support available on the Hub and the support groups and the materials and the MiSP Community as a whole and I’ve been teaching Dots ever since. In some schools running Dots early, followed by Paws b later on and then .breathe in Y6.
The opportunity to share one school’s experience more widely came in March ’24 when Esther Ghey and Emily Slater came to see a Dots session for Y2 at a primary school in Liverpool as part of Esther’s Peace and Mind Project and campaign. It was fantastic to meet them both and play a small part in allowing more people to understand the work of MiSP. (BBC Breakfast News and The Sunday Mirror also came along ….much steadying required !!!)
Head and Heart had another conversation a few weeks later when I began the School Mindfulness Lead training. This time they were both much more on the same page…. the idea being to be able to deliver .b Foundations training to staff in schools and maybe even shadow some Teach Dots and Teach Paws b training and maybe …..(this is where head struggled a bit shouting “Imposter ! Throw her out !!” but not for long) …. even assist on some training for teachers moving forward.
So that’s where we are. From January 2020 to October 2024. Not a great deal of strategy on my part if I’m honest, but a willingness to give it a go with the absolute certainty of unparalleled training and support and an increasingly strong belief in the importance of the work, and my own practice which continues to be nurtured, supported and sometimes dragged kicking and screaming as I develop as a teacher. It’s this practice though that’s they key. Imperfect as it might be but there all the same. Paraphrasing some words from John O’Donoghue, it’s like “an invisible cloak to mind my life.”
Our huge thanks to Nicky for her work and for taking the time to share this with her. We are delighted that she has indeed shadowed and assisted on trainings and is a welcome member of our associate training team!
About Nicky
Nicky Beattie’s early teaching and school leadership career focussed primarily on working with young people at risk of exclusion from the mainstream of education.
Since 2002 she has worked independently, developing and providing Coaching and Wellbeing Programmes and training for a variety of organisations within the business community and education.
Her search for ways in which to better support our children and staff in schools led her to MiSP in 2017 where her formal Mindfulness training began. She currently delivers Dots, Paws b .breathe and .b Foundations in a number of settings as an external teacher. She is passionate about supporting the Mental Health and Wellbeing of our Young People and those who work with them.