Fairfield Council adopt the Karma Classroom program

 

Fairfield Council adopt the Karma Classroom program to create calmer classrooms and build children’s self-regulation 

Silvana Popovic, Community Project Educator with Fairfield’s Children & Family Services shares their experience. 

At the beginning of 2023, educators across all Fairfield’s Early Learning Centres were struggling with their wellbeing and general behaviour challenges. Senior management were keen to bring in effective PD that would be simple and easy to learn and, more importantly, simple, easy and effective within the classroom environment and beneficial for both the children and educators.

Best Start Education and Care reflected on Fairfield’s early learning services and identified the following needs: 

• High numbers of children enrolled in the services require additional support  
• The children need support to build on their self-regulation skills  
• They would love to explore avenues and techniques to create calmer environments within the services, as many of their children have sensory issues 
• Many educators were becoming tired and burning out (and it was early on in the year!) 

We enlisted the support of Beth Borowsky, Founder and Head of Wellbeing Education at The Karma Class, and were lucky enough to be able to run two professional development courses for our educators - their NESA accredited Karma Classroom 5-hour workshop for all Fairfield ECTs and their 3-hour Karma Classroom fast-track for a second set of educators. 

Each workshop was interactive and experiential and received overwhelmingly positive feedback including but not limited to: 

• “It encouraged me to focus on my own well-being through meditation and breathing exercises.” 
• “It emphasised the importance of creating calmer classrooms and environments within the service.”
• “It provided visual cards and simple techniques to prompt me to engage children in relaxation and yoga techniques to build on their self-regulation.” 

Educators felt equipped and comfortable to begin using the program immediately and several services extended upon their PD training and enrolled The Karma Class to run weekly kids yoga classes with their children at their services.  

The feedback has been truly positive, with educators stating it was great to have someone role model the practices to them, as well as to see how engaged the children were from start to finish. 

Working with The Karma Class has been tremendously beneficial to everyone’s health and wellbeing within our centres and to the overall classroom environment. Here’s how: 

• Educators have found the techniques great for breaking up those busy moments of the day and helping children to ground themselves so that they can listen, learn and play more effectively.  
• Educators have found the use of ‘Peace Pauses’ highly effective during transitions. 
• Educators have found the visual Karma Classroom Activity Cards and yoga techniques to be great tools for engaging children in small and large group experiences. 
• Children have built upon their balance and coordination. 
• Educators have found the Hoberman sphere - AKA magic breathing ball - a great tool to help children self-regulate through mindful and calm breathing.