Mindfulness and contemplative approaches in education

There is a growing and promising quantitative evidence base on mindfulness in schools, which has continued to emerge over the last two years and which consistently suggests small to moderate impacts across a range of outcomes, most strongly and reliably on psycho-social health and well-being, especially mental health problems, with less definitive but promising evidence for small effects on behaviour, cognition, learning, and physical health. The overlapping field of 'contemplative education' is less concerned with measurable outcomes, aiming instead to put the learner, and their self-reflective mindfulness at the heart of the teaching and learning process. Interest is growing on how best to implement mindfulness and integrate it into the policies, practice and ethos of the whole institution, with some promising early findings, mainly from qualitative data. There is a particular and growing emphasis, supported by some emerging quantitative evidence, on the need for teachers to learn mindfulness themselves and establish their own practice if they are to cultivate mindfulness in schools effectively.