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Smarter but more stressed: How the modern world is changing children
March 14 @ 9:30 am - 12:00 pm
Time: 9:30am – 12:00pm
This course is being delivered online, and a recording will be available for up to 30 days after the event has ended.
Fees
Member – £99
Non-Member – £149
Facilitators – Professor Sam Wass and Gemma Goldenberg
The world is changing rapidly, and so is the way that children use their brains. Technology has brought both advantages and challenges, as has urbanisation. Understanding how the modern world affects the brain can help us to support children with issues such as attention problems, stress and social difficulties.
Aims
- Know how changes in the modern world impact the brain, and how to use this knowledge to support students effectively with their learning, behaviour and well-being.
- Understand how learning environments affect children differently, and how to create inclusive environments with the right levels of stimulation.
- Hear practical tips about how to support students with their attention and focus.
- Know how stress impacts the brain and how to minimise student stress in order to achieve better outcomes.
- Understand more about what happens in the brain and body during stressful situations and how to calm students down when they seem ‘out of control’.
- Discuss technology and screen time – to what extent is this damaging? How can positive effects be harnessed and negative effects be mitigated against?
Audience
CEOs, Headteachers, Deputy Headteachers, Assistant Headteachers, Middle Leaders, teachers.
Facilitators
Professor Sam Wass
Professor Sam Wass is a child psychologist and neuroscientist who is an expert in child concentration, stress and learning. He has a degree in experimental psychology and completed his PhD at the centre for Brain and Cognitive Development. Sam was awarded a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, based at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University. He was then awarded an Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders Fellowship, for which he moved to the University of East London. In 2020 he was awarded a 5-year research fellowship from the European Research Council.
Sam leads a research unit, the BabyDevLab based at the University of East London. East London is one of most demographically and socioeconomically mixed areas of the world, and a major focus of his research is understanding diversity and adversity and their effects on early development.
In addition, Sam is active in the public communication of science and regularly appears as an early years expert on television, radio and in all national newspapers. He appeared as a psychologist in the multi award winning channel 4 series ‘The secret life of 4, 5 and 6 year olds’ and has acted as a media spokesperson for the Department for Education, Public Health England, Save The Children, Lego, Disney+ and many others.
Gemma Goldenberg
Gemma Goldenberg is a psychologist and education expert with 2 decades of experience working in nursery and school settings. She has an MSc in psychology and will soon complete her psychology PhD, which explores how indoor and outdoor learning environments affect children’s stress, attention and behaviour. When working as an Assistant Headteacher, Gemma led on curriculum design and staff CPD. She also worked as a research and learning specialist for The Chartered College of Teaching. Here she created research-informed CPD materials for teachers, produced reports such as the ‘Education in times of crisis’ series and prepared research for all-party parliamentary groups and the OECD amongst others.
Co-founder of NestKids.co.uk and a regular writer for publications such as Nursery World magazine and Early Years Educator, Gemma also presents frequently at educational conferences and events. She co-authored a book with Professor Guy Claxton, ‘Powering up your school’ and is currently writing a second book with Sam, about developing attention and focus in the Early Years and KS1.