Internet Safety Week
The Damaging Effects of Excessive Screen Time This weeks’ theme of the week focused students’ attention on the detrimental effects of too much screen time. The school’s e-learning...
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The Damaging Effects of Excessive Screen Time This weeks’ theme of the week focused students’ attention on the detrimental effects of too much screen time. The school’s e-learning...
Posted by Bill Fisher
Our dedicated head and deputy head of science, Mr O’Brien and Ms Atchuthan, supported on Tuesday by Mr Green, planned and delivered a marathon programme of six 3-hour...
Posted by Bill Fisher
Wednesday 4th February saw the Boccia team take part in the regional rounds of the Lord’s Taveners competition in Harlow. In a tough competition Bushey Meads played some great...
Posted by Sarah Cooper
Our third enrichment day of the year took place on the penultimate Thursday of the half term and, as usual, comprised a range of activities that will have created some great...
Posted by Bill Fisher
Top scientists from Years 8 & 9, with the enthusiasm and motivation to gain this prestigious national science award, have signed up to our new CREST award club. Each Tuesday...
Posted by Bill Fisher
On Monday 5th February 2018 the Eco-Leaders and three Senior Prefects from Bushey Meads School were generous enough to give up their lunchtime and lesson 5 to visit Little...
Posted by Sara Ash - Deputy Headteacher
What spinach did for Popeye, our top boy scientists are hoping porridge will do for them. Dedicated head of science, Mr O’Brien, is sharing his well-known love of the oaty...
Posted by Bill Fisher
Well done for a great effort racing on Tuesday 6th February. You all did Bushey Meads proud! Congratulations to Ethan, Nathan and Italiia for qualifying (by 1 point!) for the next...
Posted by David Chalkley
On Thursday 8th February Years 10 and 11 took part in an important raising achievement initiative. The meaning of Progress 8 was explained to the Year 10 students and how they can...
Posted by Sara Ash - Deputy Headteacher
On Saturday 3rd February four students from Bushey Meads competed in the annual Hertfordshire County Cross-Country Championships. These were Ronan (Year 7 – Pre Junior...
Posted by Ashley Cartledge
This weeks’ theme of the week focused students’ attention on the detrimental effects of too much screen time.
The school’s e-learning leaders sent out a google questionnaire to our students, asking about their screen time. Over 300 responses were analysed and a few of the key results are presented in these pie charts.
As you can see, around 60% of our students are checking their phones or social media as the last thing they do at night. Many scientists and researchers believe that this interferes with sleep time, which is crucial to students’ learning ability and mental well-being. Click below to see the short video clip about this issue which students watched and studied (apologies it may begin with a short advert).
We even see from another pie chart that around 7% of our students are waking up in the night and checking their phone either nearly always or quite often, and a further 23% are doing this occasionally. This is more evidence of the detrimental effects of screen time on our students’ sleep patterns.
Our survey also revealed a small but worrying number of students are getting upset through their social media use. Indeed, there is a national rise of depression and mental health in young people and many link this to the detrimental effects of social media on those not resilient enough to cope. Click below to watch the short Sky News clip which students watched, reporting on this really serious issue.
One factor leading young social media users to depression is seeing the perfect representations of other people’s lives being posted up and then youngsters comparing these to their own lives which can seem less interesting. Every holiday the best ever, every party the greatest, every activity simple brilliant – but of course these representations aren’t the reality of other people’s lives. Students also watched this award-winning video in which a young woman presents to her social media followers a brilliant but totally pretend life.
Our e-learning leaders also discovered, as shown from the third pie chart, that around 30% of students are checking their social media which doing their home learning. Distraction seriously impedes learning and can render that home learning task much less useful: Click here to see another clip watched by students this week, showing how distractions interfere with the transfer of knowledge to long term memory.
Head of Elm House Mrs Pattni always makes us think in her inspirational House Assemblies and on Tuesday of this week it was no different. Under the theme of the week...
It was great to sit in the Year 9 Assembly last week – one of several main school assemblies led by Mrs Hayward, our hard working Head of Economics and Business Studies, on...