I am sure that both you and your children were delighted to receive the welcome news on Monday evening that schools will reopen on Monday 8 March. However, whilst I am sure many of your children were overjoyed at the prospect of returning to school, it is understandable that this change to their routine may bring with it a degree of anxiety. As a psychologist, I am always fascinated by the different approaches that children have to change, as whilst some embrace it fully, others can feel overwhelmed by the uncertainty that change can bring. From a neuropsychological perspective, certainty equates to safety as the brain seeks predictability as part of the survival instinct. Uncertainty can trigger a threat response in the brain, causing a chain reaction of physiological changes in the body, which we experience as stress and anxiety. The latest research also suggests that this stress response is always on the verge of being activated, therefore as humans, our response is to keep it repressed by ensuring certainty in our lives.
However, the good news is that expected certainty beings about very different physiological responses to unexpected certainty. Unlike unexpected uncertainty, expected uncertainty triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, flooding our nervous system with the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which aids reasoning, concentration and learning. Therefore, for your child, understanding that change is going to happen is beneficial, rather detrimental, to their development and learning. In a recent TED talk, the health psychologist Kelly McGonigal shared her research into the benefits of embracing stress after finding that people who learned to view stress as beneficial to their performance, were less stressed, less anxious and more confident. All of our teachers are here to ensure that your child’s return to school on 8 March is as stress free as possible, therefore please do not hesitate to let us know if there is anything further we can do to help ease their transition back to the classroom.
Finally, I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate our Year 13 pupils on the offers they have received from the country’s leading universities. We wish them and all of our Year 11 pupils, every success in the last few months of their GCSE, A-level or BTEC studies.
Kind regards
Ms Rebecca Seamark - Head of Sixth Form
Senior Leadership Team Blog Sixth Form
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