This article was originally published on 21 February 2024
Teachers have long told students - and their parents - about the importance of a good night’s sleep for success in school.
And now new research from Colorado State University, presenting compelling scientific evidence of the negative consequences of not getting enough sleep, provides some invaluable proof to help back up these claims.
Specifically, the research tracked the sleep patterns of 94 children aged 5 to 9, monitoring the impact that different sleep patterns had. The study used MRI scans to analyse how the structure of children’s brains changed depending upon different sleep durations.
Pupils not getting healthy sleep
The researchers identified clear evidence that pupils with poor sleep routines, who often had less sleep during the week, exhibited notable changes in brain structure, stating that: “Shorter weekday sleep duration was significantly associated with reduced thickness in temporal, frontal and parietal cortical regions and smaller amygdala volume.
“Sleep-related structural differences in these cortical regions may partially explain the well-established associations of sleep duration with academic achievement and mental health in children.”
These are the parts of the brain linked to language, behaviour and processing emotions. So a lack of good quality sleep may not only be associated with the brain’s structure but also the function of emotion-processing brain circuits in children.
The report authors note that “targeting children’s sleep sufficiency...may be an effective way of supporting healthy brain development and, in turn, cognitive development and mental health”.
This, then, gives new and compelling evidence for schools to communicate to families about the importance of having positive sleep routines at home and ensuring that young people do get enough sleep.
This is no easy task, though. In a society where the chief executive of Netflix said “we’re competing with sleep”, there have never been more distractions, from social media to television, for anyone, let alone young people.
The scale of the problem across the UK has been set out by the NHS, which found in 2022 that 34 per cent of children were regularly having problems sleeping, and 72 per cent of children with mental health concerns were having sleep problems.
While schools, with the exception of boarding schools, cannot directly oversee young people’s sleep, it is vital that they educate children and their parents on the importance of sleep.
It is a topic that can often be overlooked compared with more overtly worrying trends like vaping, drinking and inappropriate online material.
Distracted by smartphones
However, there is a clear overlap here in that the smartphone is at the root of the problem.
Often explained away as a requirement for children as their “alarm clock”, the smartphone is, in reality, a gaming and social-media distraction that can disrupt good sleep patterns.
If parents have the courage to insist that phones are left downstairs overnight then this is often a crucial first step to good sleep for children.
Schools can’t do this for them - but presenting clear evidence, and from an early age, about the importance of sleep can only help.
Luke Ramsden is deputy head of an independent school and chair of trustees for the Schools Consent Project
