Dear Parents

I love summer, but what a relief when daylight saving actually finishes. A relief because I don’t like the dark mornings and struggle to wake up. Seems I am not alone. One of the most common greetings in the morning over the past couple of weeks was about the dark and also about how tired people were feeling. We have certainly noticed more children appearing to be tired.

Sleep; too much, not enough, rarely just the right amount. So why are conversations about sleep so prevalent? That’s because a lack of sleep affects our lives.

Oh no, not another column about sleep. All very well to read about it, but how does that help? That is certainly my attitude. I know all about relaxing before going to bed, no heavy meals or caffeine, no TV in the bedroom. I laugh out loud at warm baths with scented candles, as if I have time for that. Reading about what to do about lack of sleep doesn’t make the slightest difference. I just carry on regardless.

However, when it comes to children’s lack of sleep, I have a completely different attitude. It is well researched and well documented that lack of sleep has enormous implication for children’s learning.

The guidelines for adequate sleep for children generally are as follows:

3 – 6 years                 10 – 12 hours

7 – 10 years               10 – 11 hours

10 – 14 years             9 – 10 hours

14 – 18 years             8 – 9 hours

For a child, the risks of sleep deprivation are much more serious than simply waking up in a grumpy mood. Poor sleep makes life unpleasant. More worrying, however, are long-term behavioural, cognitive, and health problems.

Poor or inadequate sleep can lead to mood swings, behavioural problems such as hyperactivity and cognitive problems that impact on their ability to learn in school. Sleep restriction is associated with impaired memory (Hairston et al 2005), poor academic performance (Fallone et al 2005), and obesity (Lumeng et al 2007; Bell and Zimmerman 2010).

Usually it is easy to identify children with sleep problems. But parents may have trouble recognizing the signs of sleep deprivation in their children, and it appears that many children go undiagnosed. It may appear that your child is alert, but they may be suffering from behavioural insomnia in childhood (BIC –Moore et al 2007) recognised by requests for one more story, or one more drink, or one more hug. This is due to unclear or inconsistently enforced bedtime rules.

An experimental study of school-aged children has shown that even children who had no reported sleep difficulties performed better on neurobehavioral tests after they were given an extra hour of sleep (Sadeh et al 2003).

For this reason, it makes sense to examine your child’s sleep schedule, even if they don’t show obvious signs of sleep deprivation. Good sleep practices will help ensure that your child gets the sleep they need.

I can tell you that sleep has a huge impact on academic performance and behaviour but I can’t tell you how you can get your children to bed earlier; that’s your problem!

Kind regards

Janice Adamson

HOUSEKEEPING

1. UPDATING YOUR CONTACT DETAILS:

Thank you to all who have returned these forms … please return by TOMORROW – Friday.

4. SCHOOL DONATIONS:

… Last chance today to pay before the end of the financial year. Payment can be made via the school shop.

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Receipts will be distributed next week.

5. SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB

As many of you will be aware there have been serious problems at Scholastic and there have been delays in processing orders. Please CLICK HERE for an update of what is happening at Scholastic.

6. SUSHI TRUCK LUNCH ORDERS

Sad news ….. The Sushi Truck can no longer provide lunches for the school. We would like to thank Motokuni Yamasaki for the service he has provided to the school – we have enjoyed his sushi. He will continue delivering until the end of this term.

Please note EzLunch has a sushi option in their extensive menu. They deliver to the school on Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays.

We are also negotiating for a new lunch provider to provide another option for Thursdays. Watch this space.