How To Become A Kids Yoga Teacher

If you’re wondering how to become a kids yoga teacher, our guide is here to help you through the journey from getting qualified to the career progression opportunities waiting for you at the end.

In this article, we will take you through the following steps to become a kids yoga teacher:

• Step 1: Get Qualified as a Kids Yoga Teacher
• Step 2: Get Insured as a Kids Yoga Teacher
• Step 3: Fine Tune Your Skills as a Yoga Teacher
• Step 4: Decide Where You Want to Work as a Kids Yoga Teacher
• Step 5: Consider Your Options For Career Progression as a Kids Yoga Teacher

The first and most crucial step if you’re wondering how to become a kids yoga teacher is to get qualified. With OriGym’s Level 3 Diploma in Teaching Yoga, you can get started on the path towards this rewarding career today!

Alternatively, check out our full range of courses today by downloading our complete course prospectus here!

Step 1: Get Qualified as a Kids Yoga Teacher

To become a yoga teacher for kids, there are some qualifications you’ll need to ensure you’re equipped with the right knowledge and skills to teach yoga to this demographic. Those are:

• A Level 3 Yoga qualification
• An enhanced DBS background check
• First aid certification

Complete a Level 3 Yoga Teaching Qualification

The most important qualification required to become a certified yoga teacher for kids is a Level 3 Diploma in Teaching Yoga. This will lay a solid foundation for the essential knowledge and practical skills required for a successful career in this industry.

A high-quality course will provide students with everything they need to successfully become a yoga instructor. 

For example, OriGym’s yoga course teaches students how to:

• Plan effective yoga sessions for both individuals and groups
• Confidently deliver yoga sessions in an all-inclusive environment
• Motivate clients both during and away from yoga sessions

Students are also provided with health and safety knowledge in a yoga class environment by emphasising a duty of care for clients. They will also learn about the history of yoga, as well as its fundamental principles.

When looking how to become a certified yoga instructor for kids, you should first ensure any Level 3 Yoga Teaching Course you search for is regulated by Ofqual. 

As this governing body regulates all examinations, qualifications, and assessments in England, you can be assured all the information and skills you will learn on an Ofqual-regulated course is trustworthy.  

You should also check the course is accredited by CIMSPA, the UK’s professional body for health and fitness. 

This accreditation means you can be assured the course you’ve enrolled on is reliable and meets the standards of the fitness industry.

The best way to complete this qualification is through a course that offers blended learning, a study method which combines remote learning via online resources with in-person training during practical workshops.

Opting to learn in this way means you can study in the comfort of your own home and work it around your schedule.

The practical element is crucial in:

• Developing your confidence in front of a class
• Working alongside professionally qualified yoga teacher trainers
• Meeting other like-minded people

This is exactly how we teach our Level 3 yoga diploma at OriGym, providing students with 400 hours of guided learning - double the industry standard - ensuring you receive as much support and guidance as possible.

You Need A DBS Check To Be A Yoga Teacher For Kids

If you want to become a yoga teacher for kids, you’ll need to look into getting a DBS check, specifically an enhanced DBS check. 

This is the most detailed and in-depth criminal record and barring check that can be carried out in the United Kingdom.The enhanced check is used to vet people for roles that involve working with children or vulnerable adults.

This involves checking whether someone appears on the children or adult barred list, as well as their criminal history.

It checks the barring list for any:

• Reprimands and warnings (now replaced by youth cautions)
• Convictions
• Cautions
• Police intelligence reports
• Inclusion on the Children’s and/or Barring List
• Previously stepped-down cautions or convictions

You cannot personally apply for an enhanced DBS check - your employer must apply with your consent. 

The certificate is returned to you after processing, and you’ll then need to show it before starting a role.

While this may not be something you have to think about until you’re employed, it’s still something important to keep in mind if you’re looking for kids yoga teacher jobs.

Get A First Aid Qualification

If you’re looking to be a kids yoga instructor, it may be worth gaining a qualification in first aid. Accidents can happen during sessions, especially when children are involved, so being a certified first-aider will reassure parents their children are going to be safe.

While a first aid qualification isn’t mandatory to become a kids yoga teacher, it’s certainly something to consider. 

As children will be your responsibility during sessions, equipping yourself with knowledge about how to handle potentially difficult situations can go a long way.

Having confidence in all areas is what makes a good yoga teacher, and you should know how to deal with emergency situations and act accordingly. This is certainly crucial if you are the only adult in the room during these sessions.

In the most extreme cases, you could even save a life!

Step 2: Get Insured as a Kids Yoga Teacher

The second step in becoming a kids yoga teacher is to insure you have the right insurance to protect you and your class members, specifically Public Liability Insurance.

If your goal is to become a kids yoga teacher, this is vital as you will be responsible for a particularly vulnerable group with their own needs and safety concerns.

Having this insurance means you can be covered for a number of situations such as:

• Injury claims
• Damaged equipment 
• Misconduct claims
• Stolen equipment

While we hope these issues won’t be too common, it’s wise to protect yourself financially in case they do arise!

Whether you’re employed by a company or working freelance, you’ll want to invest in public liability insurance to cover you for a range of third party claims, including:

• Injury or illness to you and clients
• Claims of harassment from clients
• Damage or loss of equipment by clients or third parties
• Claims of professional negligence if people suggest your practices have been unsafe or there’s supposedly been an oversight

It’s not a legal requirement to have a public liability policy or even yoga teacher insurance. However, purchasing it means you will:

• Protect your reputation
• Be financially protected
• Increase employment prospects

Even in the best yoga studios, you aren’t always covered by their insurance. If you’re working as a kids yoga teacher in a studio, fitness centre, or school, it’s likely you’ll do this freelance, and so will have to cover yourself for insurance.

If a yoga studio or other establishment says you are covered by them, always examine what you are actually covered for and purchase additional insurance if necessary.

Step 3: Fine Tune Your Skills as a Yoga Teacher

There are many skills required to become a yoga instructor and these must be adapted for kids if you want to teach them successfully.

Adapt Teaching For Your Students

Yoga can be a difficult activity for many adults, let alone children. Becoming a certified yoga instructor for kids means you will have to make your sessions more age appropriate.

Although there are many types of yoga styles, you’ll need to find one that works for a younger age group, likely using methods you aren’t as used to.

This doesn’t necessarily mean dumbing-down your preferred teaching style, but rather simplifying it enough so children aren’t overwhelmed by what you’re trying to make them do.

You should also have a focus on more visual elements than you would in an adult yoga class. This may include games and interactive activity using props to make asanas and yoga poses more accessible and easier to learn.

A kids yoga company who does this is Follow the Rainbow. They incorporate toys and props into their online classes to make them more entertaining, especially as they’re done virtually.

Other ways you could do this are by using:

• Colourful scarves
• Ribbons
• Puppets 
• Colouring books

Of course, this will largely depend on the age group. Older children will require slightly less distraction and may react negatively to classes if they feel they’re not suited to their age group.

Clear Communication Is Vital When Working With Kids

As a certified yoga instructor for kids, you’ll need to adapt your language and instructions in a way they can understand. This means safely guiding them through each pose, ensuring they perform each one effectively.

You should also be sure to watch your vocabulary as a kids yoga teacher by avoiding difficult words for certain asanas or sanskrit phrases. However, this doesn’t mean to rule them out completely!

Children will likely respond well to learning a couple of more advanced phrases during sessions. Teaching them one or two will make them feel more confident in your classes and smarter when you leave.

Although you should be encouraging children, use phrases such as ‘good job’ and ‘great work’ sparingly. 

Constant praise can often have the opposite effect as it becomes less meaningful. Instead, applaud them on things such as their balance or flexibility.

Patience Is Key As A Kids Yoga Teacher

To become a yoga teacher for kids, or any age group, a high level of patience is required. This must be to an even greater degree if you choose to become a kids yoga teacher.

Kids are easily distracted! It’s up to you to develop ways to keep them engaged during your sessions, especially if it’s their first class.

Children are likely to become disinterested pretty quickly if they find your class boring. This means they could act out or start distracting other students around them. 

However, the last thing you want to do in this situation is start shouting. This will break the aura of relaxation and peace required for a successful yoga session. 

Think of it this way, would you really want to start shouting in an adult yoga class?

Remain calm and keep control as best you can. Yoga isn’t for everyone and some kids may find it difficult to stay quiet and focus on their breathing for long periods of time.

Be Mindful of Health & Safety

As a yoga teacher for kids, safety should always be your number one priority. Complex poses are likely to result in injury as kids may find it difficult to balance, especially if they’re beginners. 

The best thing to do is start them off with simple poses (such as Tree or Warrior pose) to build their confidence. 

This will also give you a good overview of the varying abilities of your students. You will then be able to see who may need extra attention if they’re struggling with particular poses. 

To help reduce the risk of injuring themselves, introduce them to the benefits of dynamic stretching. This can be as simple as bending the knees or spinning their arms in a circular motion. 

Maintain Clear Boundaries At All Times

As a kids yoga teacher, being approachable and friendly are desirable qualities. This allows you to build a good relationship with your students and make them comfortable enough to raise any questions or concerns they may have. 

However, you must always ensure to keep things professional and never overstep professional boundaries.

Any yoga teacher who is employed, freelance, or simply has a home yoga studio they operate from, must always recognise the importance of a professional student-teacher relationship.

This is crucial when teaching classes to children. The only reason to have good relationships with students is to keep them happy during classes and make the environment safe and comfortable for them to practice yoga.

- - - - 

If you’re interested in other unique areas of yoga, these articles should be of interest:

• How To Become A Prenatal Yoga Teacher
• Yoga Teacher Levels Explained 
• How To Become A Yoga Instructor Online

Step 4: Decide Where You Want to Work as a Kids Yoga Teacher

If you want to become a kids yoga teacher, the next step is to decide where exactly you want to work.

This is an important step, as it can hugely affect how much you earn. According to Indeed, the average yoga instructor salary in the UK is £29.91 an hour. 

As a certified yoga instructor for kids, it’s likely this hourly rate won’t decrease by much. Of course, this largely depends on where you work and whether you are employed or work on a freelance basis.

The most popular employment opportunities for kids yoga teachers are:

• As an employee in a school
• In a school on a freelance basis
• Teaching classes online
• Hiring out facilities as a freelancer

Let’s explore some of the more popular employment prospects in teaching children yoga.

Employed By A School To Teach Kids Yoga

A great career opportunity for any aspiring yoga teacher for kids is to find work in a school. While it’s unlikely this will be standard 9 to 5 hours, it’s an excellent form of stable employment, especially if you build a good working relationship with the school.

An example of this is the one below in Manchester, posted on Indeed. The schedule is Monday to Friday with, opportunities for after-school clubs and Saturday teaching:

This is ideal for building up your reputation! If you gain experience in one school, you may be able to supplement your income by working in other schools.

If children enjoy your after school clubs or weekend classes, you may be able to start your own kids yoga club and have parents recommend you to their friends or relatives. 

Not only is working in a school a great form of employment but it’s also ideal for networking and growing your client base.

Freelance Kids Yoga Teacher

You may find working as a freelance children’s yoga teacher is your best option. This means you could work in schools and offer sessions for children.

As highlighted by the example below, the hourly rate for a part-time children’s yoga teacher with Panthera Dance Company is anywhere between £20 to £30, similar to the salary posted above by Indeed.

Working freelance means you can set your own hourly rates rather than having what you charge be set by an employer. 

For example, in the pricing listed below by Kids Love Yoga, something they offer is Y6 SATs Yoga to help children with relaxation.

As you can see, this can be a lucrative venture as they charge upwards of £70 for a 45 minute session. However, while this may seem a lot, it really depends on how often these sessions are being held each week.

This may also mean after school sessions or clubs that can be held during term times but not during school hours, such as with this advertisement for a children’s yoga course in Dovers Green School:

As you can see, this can be purchased for £60 and involves fun and inclusive activities to ease children into the practice of yoga.

Aside from schools, you could also hire out facilities to hold kids yoga classes to help children relax both during and after term times.

Follow The Rainbow holds sessions in Queen’s Park at the MAQAM Centre in London. These classes are targeted for children between 4 - 7 years old:

The company even runs classes at holiday camps during the summer months to keep children active and stress-free. This may also be a lucrative option and a great way to have a steady income of clients. 

Parents can take their children for a session as a way to keep them entertained. However, this will largely be seasonal work, mainly focused only during the summer months or half-terms.

Online Kids Yoga Teacher

The popularity of virtual classes on platforms such as Zoom has risen in recent years. More people are finding they can offer their services online rather than expecting clients to travel to them.

If you become a kids yoga teacher, you may find it difficult to find children and parents who are willing to travel or even takepart in a yoga class. Providing online classes can help you build a steady client base as you grow your business as a freelancer.

While it’s important for kids to be around other children their own age, it’s a good way to ease them into your classes in an environment they’re more comfortable with.

Once again, Follow The Rainbow also provides private virtual classes for children to attend individually:

Currently, they have suspended weekly online group classes but this doesn’t mean you have to. By holding virtual classes for children, it’s a great way to encourage them to continue practising, especially if they see other kids engaging with it too.

You could offer weekly classes for groups of children to build up a community for those who may not always be able to afford or travel to in-person classes.

Hiring Out Facilities as a Kids Yoga Teacher

Hiring facilities such as fitness centres or community centres is a good way to gain experience if you want to one day open your own yoga studio. This gives you the opportunity to see what works and ‘test the waters’ before buying your own facility.

When you start out, you can rent out smaller places from other people, such as this yoga space in Glasgow advertised on Gumtree:

If you become a kids yoga teacher, spaces like these are great as children are less likely to feel overwhelmed entering a smaller space. 

Once you begin offering more classes and even hiring other yoga teachers for kids, you can look for larger spaces that are more suitable for a growing business.

You will be able to determine your own rates if you hire out a studio as it’s likely you will be a freelance kids yoga teacher.

Step 5: Consider Your Options For Career Progression as a Kids Yoga Teacher

To become a kids yoga teacher doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be restricted to holding sessions in schools. 

When you become a kids yoga teacher, there’s a huge amount of prospects for career and professional development, some you may not have even thought of!

Start Your Own Kids Yoga Studio

If working for yourself would suit you best, why not open your own yoga studio? 

This can certainly be a place where you can offer adult and kids yoga sessions. Providing yoga classes for different age groups also makes for a more lucrative venture.

An example of this is YogaBears Children’s Yoga, which holds classes exclusively for children:

These classes are held in Liverpool Yoga Studios with the aim of creating a friendly, inclusive environment for children to positively develop physically, emotionally, and socially.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that opening your own yoga studio takes a lot of hard work, especially to operate a successful one.

This is something that is best done once you have enough experience and have built up a stable, returning client base from freelance work.

Become A Specialist Kids Yoga Teacher

There’s a reason why even baby yoga has increased in popularity the past few years.

It has been shown yoga has positive effects for all ages and groups, especially those with special needs. 

According to this BBC article, children at Reedham Primary School with autism and ADHD appeared calmer and more at peace with their surroundings after attending yoga classes in school.

Being a yoga teacher for kids with special needs could make for a very rewarding career. A great example of someone who has done this successfully is Michael Chissick, who we mentioned earlier with Yoga At School.

He specialises in teaching yoga to children with a range of special needs such as Autism, Asperger’s, and Sensory Processing disorders, as well as mild to severe learning disabilities.

However, his path to this career wasn’t a straightforward one. The steps he took to get to the point where he could provide yoga teacher training for children looked a little like this:

• Primary school teacher
• Yoga teacher
• Kids yoga teacher
• Yoga teacher for kids with special needs

Although it was difficult to get children to engage with yoga at first, he eventually adapted his teaching methods and found sequences and breathing exercises pupils responded well to.

You can read about Michael’s story in more detail here.

Michael is increasingly visiting schools all over England to train staff to deliver yoga to their pupils as part of the curriculum - this brings us onto our next point!

As mentioned above, there are ways to gain experience and do this. To specialise as a kids yoga teacher for children with disabilities and difficulties, the best option is to work in this environment for a few years.

This could be with a school, youth centre, or community group where you can learn to understand their behaviour and the best ways to deal with their requirements.

Teach Other Aspiring Kids Yoga Teachers

There are many benefits of yoga for children which many teachers, parents, and yoga practitioners have come to realise in recent years.

As this practice is becoming more popular, it means there’s going to be more people looking for kids yoga instructor training and those who can help them get qualified!

You may choose to do this yoga for kids teaching training by providing workshops to school teachers and parents. As being a certified yoga instructor for kids is quite a specialised area of work, schools will require your expertise if they plan to introduce it into their classrooms.

For example, the Yoga Factory offers a yoga for schools programme as a way to provide teachers with another tool to improve the quality of their teaching and help their pupils gain more confidence.

The Yoga Factory has already trained over 5000 teachers to bring yoga to over a million children. As children have responded well with sporty children enjoying the activity, as well as kids who don’t normally enjoy P.E, it’s likely yoga for schools will only continue to grow.

As mentioned before, Michael Chissick is recognised by the Yoga Community and Education Sector as a pioneer and leader in the field of teaching children’s yoga to teachers. 

As the popularity of yoga for children increases, more seasoned and experienced teachers will be required to teach children and adults yoga. 

Seeing the positive effects yoga can have on children means it’s likely parents and guardians will want to learn yoga in their free time, meaning there will be a demand for it.

Teachers are very busy people so you may find you can make your services virtual. You could provide online kids yoga teacher training after hours for those who are interested in your expertise but not necessarily able to find the time to attend in-person kids yoga instructor training.

Before You Go!

Now you know the process to become a kids yoga teacher, what’s stopping you from starting your journey today?

Our Level 3 Diploma in Teaching Yoga is the most important first step for turning your passion into a rewarding career!

Enquire today by either downloading our full course prospectus here, or enter your details below.