CPD Get Ready to Learn: Yoga in the Classroom with Anne Reen, OTR, RYT- Online November 01-03, 2023

The Get Ready Project has been successfully implemented in New York City schools since 2008, initially catering to students with diverse developmental and educational challenges. However, we have expanded our program to cater to various client groups, including individuals of all ages and ability levels across the US and Europe.

We recognize that distractions are prevalent in the morning, which can significantly impact one's attention and focus. To ensure optimal learning, our program emphasizes the importance of building connections among all the systems in the body, enabling both teachers and students to achieve their maximum potential.

Through a developmentally-based, tiered program, The Get Ready Project combines yoga and mindfulness with current educational and therapeutic strategies such as social-emotional learning (SEL), positive behavior intervention support (PBIS), and response to intervention (RTI). Unlike other school-based yoga programs, our program is a daily classroom morning routine that utilizes graded manualization, including guided videos and onsite modeling, to ensure ease of administration and fidelity of implementation for both participants and instructors. The program is designed to address the needs of individuals of all ages and abilities, and our training and support resources enable program providers to gain a deeper understanding of body-brain development and its impact on learning and behavior.

Our program offers a scaffolded sequence of activities, commencing with a grounded practice, which provides a solid foundation for the development of higher-level motor skills while supporting emotional and energy regulation. This approach has been proven to be effective, as a study published in The American Journal of Occupational Therapy in 2012 demonstrated that The Get Ready Project (previously known as the Get Ready to Learn program) significantly reduces irritability, lethargy, social withdrawal, hyperactivity, and noncompliance in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This study concluded that incorporating our program into classroom morning routines maximizes academic engagement and optimizes classroom time for classrooms facing self-regulatory challenges of ASD.

Overall, The Get Ready Project is an evidence-based program that has been proven to be effective in enhancing learning and supporting emotional regulation for individuals of all ages and abilities.

Anne Buckley Reen, an OT, and RYT has created a Continuing Education program that spans across 3 days. This program offers a Yoga curriculum for school-based practitioners that has been clinically researched and aligns with RTI and PBIS. Since 2008, this Yoga curriculum has been utilized in the United States and abroad, addressing learning and behavioral issues across various ages, stages, and ability levels. The program has been shown to have a positive impact on self-regulation, attention, communication, motor planning, sensory-motor processing, and classroom performance. Get Ready To Learn ("GTRL") caters to a wide range of classroom challenges, from minimal to severe, and addresses physical limitations, autistic spectrum disorders, developmental delays, learning disabilities, and attention and emotional/regulatory issues. The program has received high praise from participating teachers, therapists, and administrators and was chosen as a PBS “Innovations in Education” program.

The course lasts from Wednesday to Friday, from 08:00 a.m. to 03:00 p.m. EST, with a 1-hour lunch break.

Register here

Program outline, click here.