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Research from last year and this has confirmed that additional study and wider reading make a real and material difference to GCSE and A Level results. Another widely-held belief has also been confirmed recently, that eating well makes a difference to academic performance too. This study specifically examined the impact of breakfast on educational outcomes. By tracking some five thousand pupils the University of Cambridge found that the chance of achieving above average test scores were twice as high for those who ate breakfast, compared with those who did not. They also found that an extra hour a day of TV, internet use or computer games links to poorer grades at GCSE. This extra hour a day of screen time saw a fall in results equivalent to two grades overall over the course of a GCSE programme of study.

Today the charity Action for Children has published findings and advice surrounding the issue of screen time for children. Two interesting points their report makes are: “parents struggle to get children off devices such as phones, laptops, tablets and TVs” and “quality time needs to be an interaction which is not about sitting in front of a screen”.

They offer some advice:

• Planning family activities that do not include technology
• Creating a weekly schedule based on the idea of one hour of technology use equalling one hour on other activities
• Recreating favourite childhood games/activities
• Parents turning off their devices at the same time as children having screen-free time

The report states that “technology is an often necessary part of the lives of children and parents alike, but it is important to maintain a balance with other activities and quality family time….strong relationships with parents build resilience in children”.

The above information is important as we move towards the external Examination season – please do support your child as they prepare for their GCSE, AS and or A Level examinations.

The year 11 revision classes will begin on Monday 28^th January 2016 in Room 1. They will begin promptly at 3pm and will finish at 4.15pm. Please note that you can sign up every Wednesday before the revision class but spaces are limited to 30. If you are unable to attend due to lack of spaces, revision material will be made available on Moodle.

We recently took Year 7 pupils to Birmingham University for some Science Fun. Here are a couple of articles from pupils who went on separate days:

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15 December

The trip to Birmingham University was very interesting and very informative. We listened to two lectures, one on Chemistry and one on Biology.

In Chemistry, we were taught how different atoms fuse together to create different elements but our main topics that we were taught were light, energy and mass and how they were and can be produced. Before starting the lectures, we were allowed to sing some Christmas songs.

In the Biology talk, we were taught how much sugar can be in just one product; the ‘winner’ turned out to be a bar of dairy milk chocolate, which also came high in which product has the most fat. They gave us gifts for volunteering to help with the demonstrations.

We weren’t the only school there. There were other schools such as Holte School, Camp Hill, Alvechurch, St. Michael’s, al-Hijrah and Bishop Challoner.  A few practicals were carried out in both lectures, like seeing which gas can produce a different colour in a burning flame – lithium produced a red colour for example.

The trip was very interesting and I hope that we can go on a trip like it again.

Hasnain Jafer, 7N

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16 December

On the 16^th December, 30 Year 7 students were given the opportunity to go to the University of Birmingham to attend two Science lectures.  We boarded our minibuses at 10.40am to depart from school and arrived at the University at around 11.20am.  We then entered the auditorium where the lectures were going to be held.

We first spent more than half an hour singing many famous Christmas songs like Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’, ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ by Shakin’ Stevens and one of the most loved Xmas songs ‘I wish it could be Xmas everyday’ by Wizzard. We joined in with the many other schools there. However, the best part was when Mr Mohsin was chosen to sing Xmas songs in front of all of us.

At 12.00pm the first lecture began, ‘Physics Hot and Cold’, given by the physicist Dr Evans. Dr Evans taught us many new and interesting facts and figures throughout the lecture. We were given information on temperature, heat, hot/cold spots in the Universe and the reactions caused by temperature. Our lecture included a lot of practicals involving liquid nitrogen. Did you know that it is physically impossible to reach a temperature of -273 degrees and that scientists use the temperature measurement Kelvin instead of degrees Celsius?

After we had our ten minute lunch break, it was time for our next lecture on ‘Health and Nutrition’. We were taught how fitness affects your health and how much sugar is in certain products. The lecture was based around 10 experiments which included an explanation of the substantial amount of calories in some of Britain’s favourite food like jacket potatoes, coke, burgers and chocolate. It was very interesting and we all learnt a lot of fascinating and useful information.

In my opinion, I really enjoyed the experience. If you have the chance of going, I would recommend it.

Rohan Minhas, 7A.