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ChildLine
reveals a 200% increase in exam stress counselling last year
CHILDLINE is reminding young people
across Merseyside that help is available if they feel anxious or worried about
exams.
As exam season gets underway, ChildLine can reveal that for the first time ever,
school and education problems emerged as a top concern among those contacting
the helpline in 2013/14. Nationally, ChildLine carried out 34,454 counselling
sessions mentioning school and education problems with a 200% increase in
counselling about exam stress specifically. There were also more than 87,500
visits to ChildLine's webpage about the issue.
In 2013/14, the Liverpool ChildLine base was contacted 510 times by children who
had concerns about school and education problems. An increase in contacts of
over 178% from 2012/13.
Not wanting to disappoint their parents, fear of failure and the general
pressures linked to academic achievement are all major themes.
NSPCC Chief Executive, Peter Wanless said:- "The exam period can be a very
stressful and anxious time for young people. As these figures reveal, the
pressure to do well is being felt by an increasing number of young people across
the country. We hear from lots of young people each year who are anxious,
worried or panicking about their exams and revision. We want to let them know
that they are not alone and that ChildLine is here to listen to them."
Stresses about exams can affect young people's ability to sleep, trigger anxiety
attacks, depression and tearfulness, and eating disorders. In some cases it also
led to self-harm and suicidal feelings, or can make them worse.
One teenage boy4 who spoke to a ChildLine counsellor said:- "I am about to
take my GCSEs and I am under so much pressure as my parents are expecting me to
do really well. I am going to revision classes and trying really hard but I feel
like it is not good enough for them. My parents don't allow me to do anything
else apart from revision and if I try and talk to them it always ends up in an
argument."
To help children and young people cope with exams and combat anxiety, ChildLine
is offering the following advice for young people:-
► Make sure you take regular breaks from revising and do some exercise
► Go to bed at a reasonable time and try and get some sleep
► Getting a good night's sleep will help you much more than trying to revise all
night – you will just end up very tired the next day
► Try to think positively – even if you don't feel like it, a positive attitude
will help you during your revision
► Take some water into the test with you, if you can. Keeping hydrated by
drinking water will help you concentrate.
 The ChildLine website has a special:-
'Beat exam stress' section for
children and young people to visit. As well as calling ChildLine's free
confidential helpline on:- 0800 11 11 or visiting:-
Childline.Org.UK, young people can also
send emails to trained counsellors or receive support online via 1 to 1 chat.
ChildLine is also offering the following advice for parents and carers to help
ease young people's exam stress and anxieties during the revision period:
Don't place unnecessary pressure on your children to gain certain grades. They
may feel they have failed if they don't achieve what they thought was expected
of them.
Encourage children to take regular breaks, eat snacks and exercise.
Help them revise by leaving them the space and time to do so.
Be relaxed about chores or untidiness and understand they might be moody. Allow
your children to revise at nights if that's what works best for them however do
make sure that they get enough sleep to keep their energy levels up in the day.
Be supportive and help alleviate their worries by talking to them.
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The Bridport Prize 2015
RODGER McGough, one of Britain's best loved
poets and presenter of Radio 4's Poetry Please, has laid down a challenge to
writers by inviting them to write a poem that he will wish he'd written himself.
Roger made his challenge as part of his role as Poetry Judge for this year's
prestigious Bridport Prize competition.
He has also made a short film to encourage writers to send in their entries. In
it he says it takes courage to enter your writing into competitions, but that he
hopes lots of writers will do and he is looking forward to reading the poems.
The film can be seen on
YouTube.
The Bridport Prize, established in 1973 is one of the best known 'open'
writing competitions in the English language, meaning both new and established
writers are eligible to submit work. It regularly attracts entries from as far
away as the USA, Australia and New Zealand.
There are 4 categories to the competition:- Poetry (up to 42 lines max); short
stories (up to 5,000 words); flash fiction (very short stories of 250 words
max.) and the Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel (the opening
chapters of a novel up to 8,000 words max.)
The judges for 2015 are Roger McGough for poetry and award-winning writers Jane
Rogers for short stories, David Gaffney for flash fiction and Jane Feaver for
novels.
The competition offers top prizes of £5,000 in the poetry and short story
categories, £1,000 in the flash fiction and £1,000 plus up to a year's mentoring
from project partners The Literary Consultancy for the winner of the PC-A novel
award.
The winning poems, short stories and flash fiction stories are published in a
Winners Anthology in the autumn and the winner and runner up in the novel award
will have their opening chapters published on the Bridport Prize website.
The competition closing date is 31 May 2015, so there are still a couple of
weeks to submit your poems and stories. Entries can be made
online or by post by downloading an application and sending it
to the address on the form.
Winners will be notified by mid September and formally announced at the Bridport
prize-giving and online on 17 October 2015.
The Bridport Prize is the flagship project of Bridport Arts Centre in Dorset and
raises vital funds for the Centre's work.
Merseytravel launch Baby on
Board badges
MUMS-to-be can now wear a Merseytravel
'baby on board' badge when travelling around the transport network. The brightly
coloured yellow badges offer a subtle way of letting fellow passengers know that
the wearer is pregnant. The idea was suggested by Kat Taylor from Liverpool, who had heard about a
similar scheme in London; she contacted Merseytravel who were quick to pick up
on the idea.
Kat said:- "In the early stages no one can see that you are pregnant, so a
badge would be useful to make sure the people around know you are expecting, in
case you fall ill whilst travelling or so they can make space for you when
getting on and off the bus."
Cllr Marlene Quinn, deputy chair of Merseytravel added:- "We aim to make
sure that all of our passengers have a safe and comfortable journey and we
thought this was a great, low cost way of improving the journey for expectant
mums"
The badges are available from Merseytravel Centres across Merseyside. |
