Our Story

For those curious about how Seedling came to be.

Seedling Yoga began in 2017 after a chance encounter between the Hutt City Council and Seedling Creator, Sara Warnock at a Community Yoga event.

Not long out of the classroom and on Mental Health leave after experiencing significant burnout, Sara was playing around teaching yoga at a Hutt City Council yoga event at Hutt Park.

Sara, who trained as a Yoga teacher in 2013 had been teaching Yoga in her community since returning from India and throughout her time at teachers' college where she completed the graduate diploma of teaching (Primary).

Having used Yoga in her own classroom to find some sense of sanity amongst her 31 strong-willed 77-year-oldsshe had been offering a children's koha class on Saturday mornings as well as in her friend Andreas studio on Jackson Street.

During the festival, after observing Sara teaching Yoga to a small group of her friends' children, Hutt City Councils then recreation programmer Rebecca Grigg (now Mclean), planted the seeds for a Yoga in Schools program.

Some weeks later Sara found herself teaching yoga to a class of 11- and 12-year-old at Avalon Intermediate as they came in from lunch. Having seen enough to deem a pilot program worthwhile the council asked Sara what that might look like.

She sought advice from other successful Yoga in Schools Program leaders like Joanne Spence from Yoga In Schools and,

drawing on the research recommendations for successful Yoga and SEL programs, put together a twice-weekly program which were delivered to three Avalon Intermediate Classes over the course of a term.

With positive feedback from teachers and students alike, the program was repeated with another three classes before Sara formalised a curriculum, linking it to achievement objectives from the New Zealand health and Physical Education Curriculum.

Over the following two years, Sara piloted this new curriculum with willing schools across the Hutt Valley in over 100 classrooms with tamariki aged 5 to 13.

She took note of what worked, what didn't and responded to what the teachers and students were telling her with their words and their actions about what needed to be covered in the sessions.

This included recognising the need for visual resources which led to the creation of the Seedling yoga for Schools Card Deck which allowed Sara to design more inclusive and interactive learning games and activities that could meaningfully reinforce the goals of the curriculum.

Seedling has continued to grow slowly and carefully. Committed to establishing a strong foundation of relationships and evidenced-based practice.

Finding educators willing to take up the mantle of Seed Planter has been a journey all its own with incredible individuals spending time in classrooms learning the curriculum and bravely embarking on delivery.

Despite the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic brought, in 2021, we successfully applied for funding from Tu Manawa Sport New Zealand which allowed us to explore scaling the program with six new Seed Planters.

Each individual brought new considerations and interpretations of the curriculum, enabling it to grow and evolve.

Since 2017 the Seedling Yoga Program has been delivered to hundreds of children, planting ideas, forging connections and growing toolkits for young people and their teachers to care for their mental, emotions and physical wellbeing.

With each classroom community, the program has developed to meet the needs of the students and teachers it serves.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, Seedling Yoga continues to draw on research and evidence-based practices, to creatively respond to the noticeable changes in the mental and emotional well-being of our learning communities.