Message From The Head of Secondary 02-03

Apart from being a terribly charming lady, Professor Mary is also a world leading expert on sleep and circadian rhythms amongst young people.  Few people on the planet know and think more about sleep than she does.

For most of us, sleep is not something we think a great deal about, we probably have a vague idea that we should really try to get 8 hours of sleep each night, a notion that we will have seen in a news report or read in a newspaper some time ago.  Our busy lifestyles here in Abu Dhabi and the warm climate have probably led some of us to become quite partial to an afternoon nap at the weekend and those of us with teenagers in the house might spend time wondering if they will ever wake up, rather than worrying about them not getting enough sleep.

Professor Mary encouraged her audience to give their sleep patterns a little more attention and to recognise the importance of a good night’s sleep in the learning process.  No amount of revision for the test will help if a student is exhausted as they open their exam paper and the message to parents was very clearly that within our drive to promote a healthy and active lifestyle for our children, we should certainly include a positive attitude to rest.

Students at BIS Abu Dhabi must be among the busiest children in the world – we only have to read their BISAD Diplomas to see that!  The hard work they do in school and the amazing array of activities that they partake of outside school clearly indicate that our students make the most of their waking hours.  Seeing our children take advantage of the fabulous opportunities that our school, and Abu Dhabi beyond, offers to our children gives us all great pleasure as parents but it would be remiss of us if we did not pay equal attention to the amount of ‘down-time’, rest and sleep that they get too.  You can read an interview with Professor Carskadon here:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/interviews/carskadon.html

And this UK based charity offer good advice to parents about sleep:

https://thesleepcharity.org.uk/information-support/children/

As for me, well, PJ’s on, I’m off to bed.  Night night.

To return to the newsletter click here