Primary School Yoga Programme – 6 Week In Person Teachers Course
Zoom Inside is a primary school yoga programme which aims towards implementing regular yoga classes in schools throughout the academic year. In the same way that children have PE or swimming on their academic calendar, Zoom Inside provides a complete eight year yoga programme for primary school. This programme is directly linked to the Irish School curriculum.
Based on the techniques of the renowned international yoga programme R.Y.E (research yoga in education), Zoom Inside will enable schools to access professional, safe, and non-denominational yoga classes.
As with R.Y.E, Zoom Inside is based on the ancient yogic traditions and is centred on six principles that are relevant and effective tools for the modern classroom.
From these emerge the following elements which are common to all class levels of the yoga lessons.
- Self-check (pause, observe body sensations, and emotions)
- Express and share (with the aid of charts, learn and express basic body feelings and emotions)
- Stretch (basic and simple yoga postures taught individually or through games and stories to release tensions and uneasiness)
- Breathing (basic, simple yogic breathing techniques to calm, reduce and balance emotional states)
- Let go (meditation techniques using body rotation technique known as Yoga Nap© (Bihar School of Yoga) to induce a pause and deep relaxation)
- Reboot (implementing self-reassurance and positive thinking)
Keeping these six principles as a core class lesson plan, children from each class level get to explore and develop a sense of self-awareness, self-care, promoting healthy living and positive thinking, while respecting their own abilities and age.
Using story telling for the younger children, games for older children and the basic yoga class plan, with topics for the senior cycles, each child can discover and understand the relationship between the physical body, mental and emotional states to enable them to embrace both their need for physical activity and rest while building their sense of self-confidence and self-esteem and developing emotional intelligence and vocabulary.
Supporting the teachers with the curriculum, Zoom Inside is directly linked to the Irish primary school SPHE and PE curriculum, providing professional and experienced input to create a sense of teamwork between yoga instructors, teachers, pupils but also to work side by side with other book based, well-being programmes like “Weaving Well-being”.
Above all, this programme offers children a real, positive physical, mental and emotional experience which aims to provide them with long lasting life skills and tools to enable them to live, learn and grow in complete harmony with themselves and the world around them.
Aims and Objectives
- To promote the physical and mental health of a child, providing a foundation for healthy living in all aspects through simple yoga practices.
- To foster in the child a sense of care and self-respect for himself/herself and for others.
- To enable the child to pause and think, to aid the making of appropriate decisions and choices.
- To be self-confident and have a positive sense of self-esteem.
- Begin to understand the relationship between the physical body, the mental and emotional states.
- To provide the class teacher with support and professional expertise on teaching children about well-being and meditation.
- To create harmony in the classroom with their peers and teachers.
- Teach children to appreciate stillness through yoga practices and embrace their need for both rest and activity.
- Give children an opportunity to explore and name emotions and their impact on their physical body and their behaviour.
- To improve and maximize pupils’ attitudes to learning and maximize their mindfulness.
- To enhance positive thinking and good humour.
- To provide children with a deeper physical and mental experience to enhance calmness and relax.
From Juniors/Seniors Infants to Sixth Class:
Dates: Wednesday 4th February, 11th February, 4th March, 11th March, 18th March, 25th March
Time: 4.00pm to 5.30pm
Bio: Irene Gargam has been studying yoga under the guidance of Swami Yogajyoti Saraswati for the last 20 years. She has since qualified as a yoga teacher in 2010 in the Satyananda Yoga centre in Athenry c.o Galway Ireland after undergoing a 2 years training course (over 500 hours).
To pursue her ambition to teach children in school, she then qualified as a R.Y.E (research yoga in education) instructor in 2015 and has been teaching continuously in schools ever since.
In 2017, she started to undergo the Yoga Vidya training modules in “Bihar School of Yoga” India under the guidance of Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati.
She created “Zoom Inside” yoga program for primary school in 2019, after working mainly in Midleton Educate Together National school 11 years, where she was asked and still work has a permanent yoga teacher