Term 1 Week 6 4th March 2016 Issue No. 6
Learning how to row a canoe at the Year 7 Camp From the Principal Are you getting enough sleep?
Looking at a healthy level of 9 hours sleep for children and young people, only 69% of 6 – 11 year old children, 29% of 12 14 year old children and 10% of 15 – 17 year olds are sleeping this long. This means that 31%, 71% and 90% of these respective age groups are under sleeping. It’s only sleep some will say. Does it really make a difference? Isn’t life short? Shouldn’t we play hard? There are a number of physical, social and emotional consequences when we don’t get enough sleep.
Last week, Christian School principals from across NSW gathered for several days of professional learning and spiritual input. Philip Riley, from the Principal Health and Wellbeing Survey, spoke about some strategies for looking after our health and wellbeing. One of the key strategies was ensuring we all get enough sleep. For school age children the recommended hours of sleep are 9 – 11 hours, 8 – 10 hours for teenagers and, for adults, 7 – 9 hours. While an hour below this will work for some people, the majority will need the amount of sleep mentioned above and others will require an hour above these levels.
One of the differences where sleep will contribute positively in children will be in the area of avoiding obesity. The amount of exercise completed each day was a measure that was looked at in the Page 1