Donations expressly welcome!
With our unique yoga pilot project, we aim to bring about lasting change in our children’s daily school life. We want to ensure that, in a stress-free environment, they develop a healthy relationship with their bodies through play, strengthen their motor and social skills, and learn—while having fun—how to self-regulate when facing stress.
Stress, negative body image, pressure to perform and lack of exercise are just a few examples of the physical and psychological challenges our children face today. Politicians are calling for this trend to be counteracted in everyday primary school life. But little has happened so far: more and more children are suffering from depression and exhaustion. Students complain about increased headaches, neck and back pain. The majority of children in Germany don’t get enough exercise. Teachers and parents complain about the extremely short attention spans of their students. The number of boys and girls with behavioral problems is increasing. Suicide is now the leading cause of death among teenagers and young adults.
In the pilot project “Lieblingsfach Matte“, all 188 children across grades 1 through 4 at the Nikolaus-Groß-Grundschule in Cologne—a two-stream primary school with a social index rating of 3—will participate in a weekly yoga class during the 2024/2025 school year. This yoga session is part of the timetable and, like all other subjects, lasts 45 minutes. It takes place in the morning and is firmly integrated into the physical education curriculum.
At the start of the school year, fixed partnerships are formed between the class teacher and a trained children’s yoga instructor. Each yoga instructor thus becomes a “yoga mentor” for a specific class and works closely with that class teacher throughout the entire school year.
Here are the details of the project’s progress:
Project start |
Activity |
|---|---|
| Week | Kick-off: Training for participating teachers; presentation of the yoga project at parent-teacher evenings |
| Weeks 1–15 | Instruction by yoga teachers, with active participation by the teachers. |
| Weeks 16–25 | Gradual handover of leadership to the class teacher, with active support from the yoga instructor. |
| Weeks 26–30 | Instruction by the school teachers; |
| Project Conclusion | Certificates for all children; wrap-up meeting |
| Following year | Refresher training for teachers |
| Folgejahr | 6 Stunden Zeitkontingent für nachfolgende Fragen und Austausch |
Initiators and management:
Thorsten Kellermann
Graduate in Sports Science, certified yoga instructor, and director of the Cologne-based yoga school Dharmabodha Yoga; completed postgraduate studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Lecturer at the German Sport University Cologne in “Gymnastics” and “Movement Training for Children”; instructor for health insurance providers in back-strengthening and relaxation training; director of experiential and film projects in schools; winner of the 2008 NRW Youth Culture Prize; director of yoga teacher training programs—specializing in “Yoga for Seniors,” “Yoga for the Back,” and “Yoga with Children and Adolescents”; provider of yoga workshops in schools for teachers, children, and adolescents; office yoga instructor; corporate stress management trainer. Thorsten lives in Cologne with his family.
Anna Stechert
M.S. in Science Journalism, Boston University; B.S. in Psychology, University of Utah; B.A. in Communication, University of Utah. Trained and health-insurance-certified yoga teacher, trauma-sensitive yoga therapist, and children’s yoga teacher; coach specializing in NI Neurosystemic Integration® (holistic-integrative trauma work); Yoga and Cancer trainer and instructor for yoga teacher training programs; nearly 20 years of experience as a communications expert for UNICEF, including six years in acute disaster zones and another eight as a program manager for UNICEF Germany. Anna is married and lives with her family in Cologne.
Additional trained yoga teachers round out the team.
