Oh! those Obama summer reading lists, or are they Christmas reading lists! Well I definitely got Chip War off of one if his lists. And maybe for this reason last summer on my normal reading binge, i picked up (well browsed) and bought the book "Why we sleep" by Matthew Walker. It may have been those constant unhelpful mutterings in my ear from fellow colleagues "...those sixth formers are always asleep in that Common Room, I wonder how that is helping with their studies?"

Well what a read it was, and it simply made me consider and reflect on how little over 15+ years of supporting sixth formers had I not in anyway (besides the occasional comment) focused on sleep having such a dramatic affect in almost every area of our lives, and so teenagers lives. By luck I was rewriting my Core curriculum with a strong emphasis and focus on metacognition, self regulation and felt immediately this would help fit in and support my wonderful sixth formers.

Shocking quotations like the one to the right I thought would jump them into action, and so I went through a plan to introduce the science behind sleeping and then to monitor our students and their sleeping habits.

As always with any new initiative it was crucial that the process to introduce, monitor and ultimately change students behaviour' s was well through through and really did make students over the whole year think and reflect on their habits.

“If you don’t sleep the very first night after learning, you lose the chance to consolidate those memories, even if you get lots of “catch-up” sleep thereafter. In terms of memory, then, sleep is not like the bank. You cannot accumulate a debt and hope to pay it off at a later point in time. Sleep for memory consolidation is an all-or-nothing event.”

The presentations were quick enough to bring together using information from why we sleep (including Matthew Walker talking to Cognita Education) and another book Life Time, alongside other resources I will share below.

"Chronic sleep deprivation impairs our memory and learning abilities."

First workshop - to introduce the importance of sleep...

Second workshop - to reinforce connection with learning..

Over the following weeks with tutors and student - we looked at their circadian rhythms, we did a survey on their sleep habits using the Munch CQ (see below) and we got them to journal for two weeks individually any differences or issues.

• Munich Chronotype Questionnaire
• Sleep Foundation Log (used to journal)
• Learn then Sleep Research (used with second presentation)
• Top Tips for getting 7-9 hours a night

All worked well anecdotally , data was shared with students; showing how much sleep on average they got, whether they were an owl or a lark, and tutors had individual conversations with certain students whose data was concerning, or shared signs of lethargy in and around the school. But as always it is difficult with such a complex system such as a school, to see if the initiative had any effect on their sleep until late in the year we looked at the four check-in surveys they they had done. results are below:

Fascinatingly enough, and to my surprise there was some evidence of change:

You may say inconclusive with gains in the 6 to 7 hours range of 8%, and a reduction in the 5 hours or less by 8% with not much movement in the greater than 7 hours. Anecdotally (and I will not mention the year before we had an Armenian student that was renowned as sleeping each and everyday) there was a definite drop off (sorry!) on those students found napping during the day. Success maybe - but also room for reflection and thought on some wider issues raised, and what to do the next year to continue the fight. See my thoughts below: