Tai Chi For Schools

Tai Chi For You are two former school teachers who practice and teach Tai Chi. Between us we have 15 years of teaching experience and of 5 OFSTED Inspections.Through our teaching of Tai Chi, we recognise the benefits that can be brought to schools, to pupils and to the staff that work within them.

We have provided weekly classes,  transition days, project weeks, CPD and twilight sessions for staff to teach within their classes.

We have produced the following documents for schools which are available in PDF by clicking on the links below (in blue):

• Brochure - this contains details of Dr Paul Lam's Tai for Kidz Program, the benefits of Tai Chi for pupils and staff, and research evidence for its impact upon both groups.
• Service Level Agreement
• Our Health and Safety Policy
• Child Protection Policy
• Risk Assessments

Detailed below are an overview of the benefits to students and staff.

We have also provided information on possible means of funding.

 

Benefits For the Pupil

There is significant evidence that Tai Chi brings the following benefits:

• improve attitude to learning
• increase pupil development
• engage disaffected students
• address discipline and poor behaviour
• make children relaxed and calm
• develop concentration and focus, which has been linked to improvement in exam performance
• address learning difficulties
• help students with dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD and ADD
• improve literacy
• build self confidence and self-esteem
• improve health and counter health issues in childhood obesity normally associated with mature age

Tai Chi therefore meets the following parts of the OFSTED framework for inspection:

1. "The achievement of pupils at school"
2. "The behaviour and safety of pupils at school".

Tai Chi meets the following parts of the current Government's Vision for Schools:

1. Securing the wellbeing and health of young people - Dr Paul Lam’s Tai Chi for Health programs cater for people with diabetes, arthritis, back pain, and osteoporosis (all can be caused by childhood obescity). Tai Chi has been proven to improve asthma, combat stress and depression.
2. Safeguarding the Young and vulnerable - Tai Chi has been found to be good for mental health and self-esteem.
   
3. Achieving World Class Standards in Education – Tai Chi research has found improvements in attitude to learning and literacy, improving behaviour and help students with dyspraxia and dyslexia.
4. Closing the gap in educational achievement for children from disadvantaged backgrounds – Tai Chi research has shown to improve performance in examinations and has been used in the United States to engage disaffected students.
5. Keeping young people on the path to success – With the feeling of success that Tai Chi brings students can begin to realise that anything is possible.

The Ethos of both Healthy Schools and Every Child Matters still exist in schools today. Tai Chi meets these by doing the following:

1. Be healthy – healthy exercise that is particular good in relation to asthma, diabetes, joint pains (which can all be evident in childhood obesity). It is also good in dealing with stress and depression.
2. Stay safe – developing calmness and anger management
3. Enjoy and achieve –the students are not in competition with anyone else and they can see the progress they make through the effort and focus they put in. Tai Chi has small stages of success in mastering particular moves which is motivational and can build self-esteem.
4. Making a positive contribution – the students could be encouraged to share with others what they have learnt
5. Achieve economic well-being – with improved concentration and focus comes improvement in attainment.

 

Funding Students Learning

You may wish to consider using Sports Premium or the Pupil Premium. As documented above, Tai Chi has been found to improve the literacy levels, engage disaffected students, aid development, and improve concentration and behaviour. Tai Chi represents a unique way of improving literacy levels and can supplement extra literacy and numeracy sessions that things like the Pupil Premium have traditionally ssupported.

If you are interested in introducing Tai Chi into your school there are means of gaining funding for doing this aside from using the Pupil Premium.

Kent County Councils 's Learning Plus are registered grant finders for schools (free of charge) and suppliers of Grant for Schools. If you are interested in this, you can e-mail learning.plus@kent.gov.uk to find out what possibilities are open to you.

You could consider applying for funding through the Summer Transition Programme for students registered as Free School Meal (FSM) or Looked After Children (LAC). If you are interested in this please visit the following website and make an online application on there ( the closing date is 31st May 2013):

www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/premium/summer/a00216636/summer-schools-programme

Primary Schools may wish to consider using the additional sport funding that the Government have allocated back into Primary PE.

For Staff

A CPD Session by Tai Chi for You Ltd covers multiple areas of professional development in one session. We aim to provide a session that can both be employed in class and used by staff outside of school to aide their wellbeing.

Topics that can be achieved from a Tai Chi workshop include: methods to improve behaviour, how to improve focus and concentration, stress management together with a sense of wellbeing.

Our Clients: