Broad Town School (read an article here)

Broad Town School near Swindon was put under special measures after an Ofstead inspection. Head Teacher Sue Ellis said that Tai Chi was one of the reasons that the school has been able to haul itself out of the government programme two terms ahead of schedule. Each morning before lessons, the pupils spend ten minutes on exercises which aim to integrate and relax the mind and body with a series of slow, rhythmic and purposeful movements.
“Tai Chi calms the children down and gets everyone in the right frame of mind” said Mrs Ellis. After Tai Chi the pupils are more focused and learn more, raising overall achievement and results.

Janet Seymour Head Teacher at William Rhodes Primary School:-              

Y6 class were fading in the middle of the day so T’ai Chi was introduced at this point to rejuvinate and remotivate.  The teacher who joined in fully believes that the repetitive nature of the exercises and thus improvement and performance of the whole group was a big factor in the the success.  Seeing improvement daily has been very important, this is something which doesn’t happen too much in the curriculum as we dip into a variety of themes.  One very challenging boy was selected as group leader for a competition and his self esteem and worth improved immensely and with it behaviour in other areas of his life.  This Y6 class has just produced the best SATs results the school has ever had (11% up).  

 Barbara Hickmore Chesterfield School Sports Partnership based at Brookfield Community School:       

Initially, girls and boys in KS4 not involved in OSHL, as a form of self defence, plus SEN including disability as additional accessible activity.   This work continues in all Partnership Secondary and Special Schools. In KS3  T’ai Chi was piloted with one challenging boy – severe behavioural problems, disruptive and aggressive.  One to one work gave immediate and dramatic success.  This led to small group work of challenging pupils in KS3 and then KS2.  In socio-economically deprived schools with behavioural problems.  The measure of success has been beyond all expectations and has led to expansion across the partnership.  Each programme is targeted according to each schools needs, i.e. specific group/class, time of day, number of sessions per week etc eg of success.  William Rhodes Junior has averaged an 11% improvement on SATs with T’ai Chi class and has had a 56% drop in behavioural referrals with group targeted.