School No. 195, situated in Bucharest, Romania ( 2512 students, 136 paid staff, 16 unpaid staff) has been affiliated to UNESCO since 1999; in 2012 it became European School. The teachers involved in European projects keep developing mindfulness education activities for students, propose workshops, identify means for cultivating attention and reducing students’ stress. Teachers in our school organize extra-curricular activities and exchange their experience. Mirela Vilcu,  coordinating teacher, has been involved in Erasmus+ training courses on multiple non-formal methods, has attended training workshops on how to evaluate the effects of mindfulness. She uses the skills gained there to improve students’ achievements on mindfulness techniques. She is coordinating, since 2018,” 4/4 Project For Friends”. Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr’  thoughts : “The most urgent and insistent question of life is: what do you do for others?”, students and teachers celebrated the values of volunteerism and friendship. Teachers in our school know that mindfulness education encourages students to be curious and become lifelong learners. Inquiry-based learning fits with mindfulness education topics, it promotes critical thinking and innovation. Teachers involved in this project use their skills to explore the research behind inquiry-based teaching and the strategies used to engage our students. This mindfulness project helps our students discover ways to develop mindfulness techniques they need for success in a fast-changing and stressful modern world. The key people in this project integrate mindfulness activities into the curriculum, contribute to achieve learning goals that connect mindfulness techniques to education and a healthy lifestyle. The students involved in this project are able to combine the familiar with the unfamiliar, acquiring new skills, discovering mindfulness education. Our students are creative, they are working collaboratively in projects, sharing ideas in their families and groups of friends. Our teachers create activities that trigger students’ curiosity. Using inquiry-based learning, a method in which students drive their learning through the questions that they ask, the involved teachers guide their students to discover the answers on their own, to share and reflect on what they learn, to get self-access support to help them acquire mindfulness techniques, creativity and critical thinking. The involved teachers monitor students’ progress. provide structural support when needed, ensure that the focus remains on students’ questions and observations. Through this project, our students learn to improve their skills and knowledge; they get self-access support to critique, analyze, interpret information; create working theories; ask more questions; bring evidence, integrate new ideas, in order to solve problems connected to mindfulness education.

Website: https://scoala195.invatamantsector3.ro/proiecte-si-programe-educative/