I have been exceptionally fortunate in recent weeks to have been part of the Girls' Day School Trust's (GDST) ‘Positive Project’ pilot. Headed by Dr Brian Marien, this scheme aims to increase our student’s ability to access useable resilience skills when required. As a neuroscientist, I have found the sessions fascinating, especially those exploring the wiring of the adolescent mind and how we, as teachers, can help our students succeed in a rapidly changing world.

We will give you more information about the Positive Project as the term unfolds, but an article which came through on their news feed struck a chord with me last week. It was about how busy our brains have become, in a world which is becoming ever more focussed on the use of smartphones and computers. This is especially true of teenagers who can often be bombarded with information via Snapchat, Instagram, emails, texting, Twitter, Facebook and so on.

In summary, the article (extracted from “The Organised Mind” by Daniel J. Levitin), explained why the human brain is unable to effectively multi-task. In fact, if you are trying to focus on a task and you are aware that you have a message on your phone, your functional IQ drops by at least 10 points and that is without even looking at the message! Not at all helpful for those who need to be focussing optimally. To make matters worse, every time we respond to a message, text or retweet something, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released, because our brain thinks that it has completed a task. Dopamine makes us feel good, so we do it again. You get the gist. As parents, you may well be interested in reading the full article on The Guardian website. It most definitely is food for thought!