With less than three weeks left to go before a new school year, parents should be getting their kids ready for what’s to come.
Anglophone East Superintendent Gregg Ingersoll says establishing a bedtime routine is especially important, “Sleep is a key factor in not just a student’s success in school, but in life in general. Student’s that don’t get enough sleep, we see higher rates of anxiety, depression and less school connectedness and lower performance at school.”
He says younger children have to get used to the new routine, “Going to school all day is quite the change for them. We’ll often have students on the first day of school, we have to get the Bus Driver to check the bus, because the little ones are found fast asleep on the way home.”
Sleep is challenging for teens as well, who have access to electronics and phones, “People send them texts in the middle of the night and it wakes them up, and they pay attention. We have done a lot of work in mental health the last couple of years, talking about the importance of turning off devices when they go to bed and ensuring they’re not accessible when people should be sleeping.”
The first day of school for most students is September 4th.