What is the MiSP Pathways Portfolio?

Elinor Brown — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 08:33:41 +0000

The MiSP Pathways Portfolio helps you keep a record of the wide range of development work you have done, personally and professionally, to create a sustainable mindfulness approach in your school/setting.

If at some point your setting applies to Step 5 of the Pathways to become a MiSP Beacon School, the Portfolio can be submitted to support your application.

In the Hub, click on the Pathways logo for each step and in the Portfolio templates at each Step level you will see suggested detailed actions/activities that will support introducing mindfulness in your setting.

These ideas are just a suggested starting point and we welcome settings choosing other ways of getting things started.
We recommend building the Pathways Portfolio on whichever platform is most suited to/already used by your setting, ie. Googledrive, Microsoft, Thinkific, Padlet etc.
Feel free to use a range of different ways of recording evidence of the work you are doing; for example:- photos, videos, audio interviews (please get permissions for sharing any photographs or videos of students or staff), written work, artwork, displays, Class Impact survey results, staff questionnaires, research, policy documents, certificates or other evidence to show related CPD (for example, attending MiSP support sessions; retreats, group mentoring, practice sessions, Schools Sits and Skills workshops)

More detailed information for each Step is or will be available in the Hub. However, here is an idea of the sorts of evidence you could collect at each Step:

Step 1 – Explore – Evidence of research using undertaken i.e. evidence of attendance at an information webinar, a Mindfulness in School action plan, a photo of attendance at a School Sit etc

Step 2– Introduce – Evidence of introductions to mindfulness for staff and students i.e. photos of student assembly on mindfulness using Step 2 resources, photo of a staff mindfulness display board, photo of a staff taster session, certificates of attendance of practice sessions, retreats, Step 2 Skills workshops etc

Step 3 – Develop – Evidence of courses being offered to students i.e. photos or video clips of dots, Paws b or .b classes, photo of a student mindfulness display board, notes from Staff and/or Student mindfulness working groups, certificates of attendance or other evidence to show attending Group Mentoring sessions, Step 3 Skills workshops etc

Step 4 – Embed – Evidence of courses being offered to staff, parents, governors and wider development work exploring how mindfulness approaches might inform/support other areas of school life i.e. photos of course, video clips of adults in setting talking about the benefits of mindfulness, policy documents that show influence of mindfulness approaches.

Also, evidence that the School Mindfulness Lead is supporting their own practice and development i.e. certificates of attendance or other evidence to show they are receiving supervision, attending Group Mentoring sessions, Step 4 Skills workshops, retreats etc.

We hope this helps and, if you have any questions or further ideas for development, please contact enquiries@mindfulnessinschools.org.

Please join us on this journey by exploring ‘The Pathways’ today!

The post What is the MiSP Pathways Portfolio? appeared first on Mindfulness in Schools Project.

Introducing The Pathways Step 2

webmaster — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 11:26:13 +0000

By Faiy Rushton – Education and Training Development Manager

The Pathways model is a framework designed to help individuals, schools and educational settings explore the benefits of mindfulness and clearly see the extent of MiSP’s potential support. Please see our at-a-glance Pathways Model infographic.

Click to enlarge

Back in May we launched the concept of the Pathways and Step 1 (the information gathering stage).

We are delighted to now announce that the Step 2 resources are ready and available in the Hub as part of the Pathways framework!

Step 2 focuses on introducing educators to learning mindfulness for their own wellbeing. Anyone who has already completed an 8 week course and is a Hub Member can automatically access Step 2 resources via the Hub.

For anyone looking to move from Step 1 to Step 2 of the Pathways, we recommend completing a teacher-led experiential introduction to mindfulness. This could be through joining:

A MiSP 8 week .begin course (our online MiSP instructor-led course)
The 8 week .b Foundations course ( an ‘in person’ equivalent to .begin, please check our Teacher Map to find a local MiSP trained .b Foundations teacher)
An approved 8 week mindfulness course from an alternative provider.

Why mindfulness for educational staff and how Step 2 resources support?

Supporting the wellbeing of adults in educational settings is essential for those individuals as well as to the development of a thriving whole school culture. Alongside other interventions, mindfulness can play a part in both – i.e. improving the wellbeing of educational staff and, in turn, supporting a whole school approach to flourishing.

Learning mindfulness can also be an important first step to going on to learn how to introduce it to children and young people in the school or other educational setting.

Research shows us that staff learning and practising mindfulness can reduce burnout, positively impact personal wellbeing and the climate of the whole school. There has also been research that indicates that the wellbeing of educational staff affects the wellbeing of children and young people, and vice versa, so addressing the improvement of staff wellbeing is a crucial part of any whole school approach.

As well as completing an 8-week training, the positive benefits of staff learning mindfulness can be further sustained with the help of MiSP’s programme of ongoing support. With the aim of cultivating and nurturing personal practice alongside exploring how mindfulness might support us in our working life and approach to working with children and young people, MiSP offers Hub members support across the Pathways, including now at Step 2, e.g.:

Practice group sessions
One day retreats
Skills workshops.

Please note, Hub membership is open to anyone who has taken a .begin, .b Foundations or other approved 8 week course. For details of how to become a Hub member, please see here.

Keys to successful implementation and how Step 2 resources support?

Mindfulness can start with one or more passionate teacher(s) or other educational member(s) of staff. MiSP seeks to use its expertise and experience to support such teachers and educational staff with creating the best conditions for developing a sustainable model for implementing mindfulness in their setting.

Research conducted by Stephanie Wilde et al in 2019, for instance, showed that there are certain key factors in the successful implementation of mindfulness in schools, including;

Understanding that the implementation process usually takes time
Having a shared supportive ethos/climate ideally to begin with
Developing, over time, a shared language about mindfulness
Enabling students and staff to be well informed about what mindfulness is (and isn’t).

You will see, therefore, that for Step 2 we have provided resources to support educational staff in creating a shared language and understanding about mindfulness with adults and students in their community. These include:

Student mindfulness assembly ideas, presentation and notes
Staff/adult introduction to mindfulness presentation and notes
Ideas, resources and support sessions
Reflective tools.

Please note, if you would like to introduce mindfulness to students but don’t yet have any teachers or educational staff ‘in house’ trained to teach MiSP student courses in your setting, please consider finding a trained teacher in your area via our Trained Teacher Maps.

A reminder of resources for Steps (3-5) still to come

Launching one step at a time over the next year will also be the following Steps with their primary focus marked in bold:

Step 3 – Develop a model for mindfulness taught in-house to students and build a community to share coordination of mindfulness initiatives.
Step 4 – Embed mindfulness learning and approaches throughout the setting where appropriate.
Step 5 – Sustain and Share, further ensuring your mindfulness approaches are as sustainable as possible and can also be shared with and inspire others through becoming a MiSP Beacon School/Setting/Trust.

Finally – why approach mindfulness in this way?

Since 2009, MiSP has had the privilege of working with a wide variety of schools, other educational settings, Local Education Authorities and Multi Academy Trusts, helping them to support the wellbeing and mental health of both young people and adults who work within them, as well as the broader community of families, governing bodies, other service providers and volunteers who support those schools.

We have collated examples of successful implementation of mindfulness-based initiatives and key learning from where things have not quite gone to plan. The Pathways approach has evolved out of this rich learning.

The benefits of ‘The Pathways’ model include a clear but flexible structure, expert support, tried and tested resources, and a collaborative model that encourages participation from staff and students.

Ultimately, our goal is to empower schools and communities to bring mindfulness to the heart of educational life, supporting individual and community wellbeing.

We welcome feedback and the Pathways framework has been designed to evolve in response to our community’s needs.

If you have any questions or further ideas for development, please contact enquiries@mindfulnessinschools.org.