Happiness Week at school started on Monday. The team, which includes members of the laboratoire BONHEURS, the ScholaVie and the Lab School Network, has received great feedback from the field: a wide distribution of the booklet on social networks and nearly 150 email requests.
We hope that this project will be the beginning of a long series of Happiness in School Weeks and that it will give rise to a true learning community that will continue to reflect collectively on this theme!
To this end, we have asked participants to take a short online survey to get to know them better and, if they wish, continue to work together to improve happiness at school, which is one of the pillars of successful schooling! If you haven't already done so, you can fill it out here: https://educ.sphinxonline.net/v4/s/6vlqni, it will take you less than 5 minutes.
Thank you to everyone!
67 people have already responded! Who are they?
The majority of the requests are from teachers, but we have also received interest from educational advisors, school principals, inspectors and other managers who are sensitive to this issue and who encourage their teams to participate in this beautiful spring week. We have even received a few requests from overseas territories and from abroad: Germany, Belgium, and Quebec.
Among the teachers, 10.4% teach in high school, 20.9% in middle school, 25.4% in kindergarten and 40.3% teach in elementary school.
The majority of them work in a large city. They work in schools with a wide range of students: 13.4% of them have between 300 and 500 students, 14.9% less than 100 students, 32.8% more than 500 students and 38.8% between 100 and 300 students.
For some of them, setting up activities to promote well-being at school is new (18.3%), while others already have experience and organize workshops based on gratitude (6%), philosophical debates around happiness (8%) or self-confidence (10%). Many also practice activities related to relaxation: mindfulness, yoga, cardiac coherence (25.3%). We look forward to hearing more about what they are doing this week and will certainly offer a webinar exchange following this week!
Until then, we share with you some examples of what was done during the first days at the Lab School Paris.
Cycle 2
The Cycle 2 class worked on character strengths. The students realized that it is not easy to name and identify their own strengths, but it is easy to point out the qualities of their peers. The children wrote down the qualities of some of their peers (randomly assigned) on small pieces of paper and slipped them into the children's cups. They loved it, it touched them a lot sometimes to read what we thought of them!
During sports, the children practiced the Spaghetti exercise (see SBE booklet) and then selected all the activities that make them feel good in class. We will turn the wheel as soon as they feel the need, when group work is compromised by agitation or uneasiness.
Finally, the children worked on gratitude through a virtual gratitude wall! Here is the link to this wall where other students from other schools can also participate: https://padlet.com/marinelv/u4ihneuzzqukjkx2.
Cycle 3
The Cycle 3 class created a tree of personal strengths or resources and devoted their writing jog to writing a letter of gratitude to a friend.
They also completed an activity on mindfulness, using a video available in our supplemental resources. Students focus on themselves during this quiet time.
Cycle 4
Cycle 4 students completed an activity around personal strengths "The Gift of Strengths" and enjoyed a writing workshop in English offered by The Break.
During the Strengths Gift activity, the children exchanged small pieces of paper on which they wrote the strengths of their classmates. Sometimes they would share an event or fact that explained why they chose that strength. They loved giving and receiving strengths, and even got their teachers involved in the process! Then teachers offered strength to their students, and reciprocally. We suggested that they keep the cups and fill them throughout the year.
You can share your ideas and accomplishments with us, by email or on social networks, with the hashtag #semainedubonheuralecole or #happinessweekatschool to allow us to inspire each other! In these difficult times, we all need a bit of HAPPINESS and the best way is to make it ourselves!
To discover the rest of the week, it's here : https://en.labschool.fr/post/happiness-week-at-school-continues