Can mindfulness improve pupils' concentration?

Mindfulness is a psychological technique which is said to help combat stress. But should it be widely introduced in schools?

The practice of mindfulness - which draws on Buddhist thinking - has become increasingly popular in recent years. There have been calls for brain-training techniques, using breathing to achieve mental clarity, to be introduced in schools.
In October, the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group said the practice should be made more widely available and recommended the Department for Education designate three schools to "pioneer mindfulness teaching and disseminate best practice".
Political author and former head of Wellington College Anthony Seldon has called for daily "stillness sessions" in schools, saying a decline in traditional religious assemblies has left pupils with little space for reflection in the school day.
So can mindfulness meditation really help pupils concentrate amid the distractions of 21st Century living? A group of BBC School Reporters from Connaught School for Girls in Leytonstone, east London, decided to investigate for the project's 10th annual News Day.
Hannah, 14, says students wanted to establish whether mindfulness meditation could help. "We wanted to find out how it could be beneficial for our GCSEs and help us in situations where we might be very stressed.

According to the Mindfulness in School Project, which has developed curriculums for use in schools, the technique can aid concentration by helping children direct their attention to the present moment - rather than becoming overwhelmed with worry about what has happened, or might happen.
"Passing these skills on to children helps them cope positively and calmly with what life throws at them," says project director Claire Kelly.
Determined to test it for themselves, the children signed up 22 volunteers. Ten practised five minutes of mindfulness meditation every day for a fortnight, while another 10 formed a control group with no meditation (the other two dropped out during the experiment).
The children found an online concentration test to use as part of the experiment, which involved memorising sequences of flashing lights. Each participant took the test at the beginning and end of the two-week experiment.
Having completed the concentration test, the pupils invited yoga and mindfulness teacher Julie Berentsen to the school to help students in the meditation group practice a form of mindfulness.
Berentsen showed the students how to concentrate on their breath as they counted from one to 10, then one to 10 again, and so on for five minutes.
At the end of the two week experiment, the results were positive. Those who had taken part in mindfulness meditation successfully completed the concentration task an average of 2.15 times more than before, while the results of the control group improved by just 0.69 times.
But while the girls' survey produced seemingly positive results, the use of mindfulness in schools is not without its critics.

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