Jugar Life Jag Bag – Jugar

Looking for a new approach to enhance the social & emotional wellbeing of your students?

The CEO of JUGAR|LIFE, Dale Sidebottom, introduces the JAG Bag.

Early research outputs since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic estimate incidences of adolescent anxiety, depression, and stress have risen significantly. Students around the world struggle to deal with the loneliness, social isolation, and negativity brought on by continued uncertainty.

At JUGAR | LIFE, we want to do our part to remedy that. JAG, as an acronym, stands for joy, affection, and gratitude. These elements exist as core components of student social and emotional wellbeing. We challenged ourselves to design an initiative that prioritised these components irrespective of school setting. An initiative that was comprehensive in nature, flexible in delivery, and aligned with specific learning objectives drawn from global social and emotional wellness curricula. We made it our mission to make it available free of charge to all.

The JAG Bag is the result!

The research base

The JAG Bag activities have been developed from a multidisciplinary research base, but remain fundamentally framed in the tenets of POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY. We want students to be able to access activities that move them from ‘Floundering to Flourishing’.

Student benefits

Students who complete the JAG Bag activities will experience a range of short term and long term results:

Short term benefits

Long term benefits

Experiencing opportunities to develop positive emotions such as joy, gratitude, kindness, surprise, inspiration, and admiration
Engaging in activities that help develop a positive identity;
Focusing on identifying and strengthening key personal relationships
Reviewing, and refining personal aspirations
Identifying, celebrating, and savoring personal accomplishments; and
Taking steps towards further achievements concerning personal happiness, and that of others

An increase in student academic performance
A decrease in mental health issues such as stress, anxiety and depression
A decrease in behavioural issues
An increase in student school attendance
A more caring and trusting relationship between students, teachers and other school staff

Activity alignment

The JAG Bag activities have been designed to closely align with learning objectives taken from the Personal- Social domain of the International School Counselor Association (ISCA) standards.

Additionally, on a wider global scale, the activities help facilitate learning experiences that reinforce standards drawn from:

AUSTRALIA - National Curriculum -Health & Physical Education (Grades 5-8)
CANADA- Ontario Curriculum- Health & Physical Education (Grades 6 & 8)
ENGLAND- National Curriculum- Personal, Social & Health Education (KS 2 & 3)
NEW ZEALAND-National Curriculum- Health & Physical Education (Levels 3 & 4)
USA- CDC Health Schools- National Health Education Standards (Grades 5 & 8)

JAG Bag contents

We have two different packs to choose from depending on the age of your students: Upper elementary / Primary (students aged 10-11) and Middle school / Lower secondary (students aged 12-13).

JAG Bag activities

Each JAG Bag activity is designed to be visually appealing, focused, engaging, and self-fulfilling. In order to have students fully engaged. Each activity is presented to students as a learning challenge, where initial provocation of student thinking manifests as positive action towards themselves and others. Where necessary, resource sheets have been included to assist in task clarity. Reflective questions requiring the use of higher-order thinking have also been included for each of the activities. Activity covers contain an instructional video that can be accessed by scanning or clicking the embedded QR code.

Sample JAG Bag video:

Take the next step!

At Jugar | Life we scknowledge the work of teachers everywhere in creating safe and supportive environments for students to flourish. That’s why we have made the decision to offer these resources free of charge! Click on the links below to download your pack today. Lets get started on making school a better place to be!