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Sprowston mother in stand-off with school over bullying

                                     By David HannantDHannant87Specialist reporter: health and education

A Sprowston mother is locked in a stand-off with her daughter's school after keeping her at home for the past six weeks to avoid what she describes as "brutal" bullying.

Rebecca Everson says the treatment her 12-year-old daughter Phoebe suffers has become so severe that the youngster has been left "a shell of a girl".

She says the Year 8 Sprowston Community Academy pupil is subjected to cruel messages on social media platforms like Whatsapp, Instagram and Snapchat and has abuse hurled at her by classmates regularly.

After raising her concerns with school leaders, Ms. Everson said her daughter's issues only got worse so for the past six weeks she has refused to send her in. However, she now claims the school is threatening her with fines over Phoebe's attendance record.

She said: "The bullying Phoebe has suffered has been awful. They send her messages calling her every name under the sun. It is brutal.

"I have rung the school and told them she does not feel safe at school and requested work to be sent home for her, but they have done nothing."

Ms. Everson the issue started in October last year, which she reported to Phoebe's teachers.

She said: "The school said they would talk to the girls involved, but when they did it just aggravated the situation.

"Some of the girls involved in the cyberbullying attend other schools nearby too, so moving schools is just not viable.

"Phoebe is a shell of the girl she was before this all began. She has done nothing to deserve this but now she's terrified to even go to school.

"I just feel like I'm going around and around in circles trying to get something done - it's terribly awful."

Sprowston Community Academy was approached for comment but said the school was unable to comment on individual cases.

Sprowston mother in stand-off with school over bullying | Extract taken from Eastern Daily Press (edp24.co.uk) and slightly modified.

Why does Nature Loss Matter?

Nature is our life-support system. From the fresh air we (1) breathe to the clean water we (2) drink, nature (3) provides the essentials we all rely on for our survival and well-being. And it also holds the key to our (4) prosperity, with millions of livelihoods and much of our economic activity also depending on the natural world. These immense (5) benefits to humanity, estimated to be worth around US$ 125 trillion a year, are only possible if we maintain a rich (6) diversity of wildlife.

Available in: https://explore.panda.org/newdeal?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgO2XBhCaARIsANrW2X0IIHXhC2iCZHBBoQAx6UyJdDDUy2p-hWYPGlbDTblY7kfNin2Y2GoaAvVGEALw_wcB#why. Access in: 16 Aug. 2022.

De acordo com o texto, assinale a alternativa que indica a classificação correta das palavras destacadas.

What is an effective way of getting people to cut down on meat?

A meat tax, or “sin taxes” would be most effective yet almost all government subsidies promote meat consumption. In the UK, the best (1)________of how this might work is the tax on the soft drinks industry. It mainly (2)________manufacturers reformulating products, and didn’t put the burden on the consumer. A meat tax would mainly incentivise manufacturers to put (3)________  meat in products (eg, a sausage might have 60% meat instead of 70%) but there is no government appetite for it.

There are many reasons for this, including lobbying from interest groups saying it would (4)________the domestic farming sector. Neoliberal governments also have a tendency to believe the market will internalise health and environmental costs if better information is provided, and the government does not want to appear to be a “nanny state”, says Dominic Moran, professor of agricultural and resource economics from the University of Edinburgh. There is also concern the burden of taxes falls disproportionately on lower income groups. “But this isn’t (5) ________,” says Moran. 

If you make it easier for companies to advertise products that are better for the environment, you expose fewer people to products which are bad for the environment. Good in theory, but it would be really hard to work out what should be regulated because (6)  ________  tobacco, eating meat is not all bad for people, it’s just the quantity it is being eaten in. It would also be hard to know what needs to be regulated – would it just be (7) ________ red meat, or chicken too? What about organic?

Available in: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/16/how-can-the-uk-reduce-meat-consumption-and-cut-emissions-aoe?CMP=Share_

AndroidApp_Other. Access in: 16 Aug. 2022 (adapted).

No texto apresentado, foram omitidos sete termos cujas grafias estão contidas nas alternativas a seguir. Assinale a que completa, correta e respectivamente, as lacunas numeradas nele.

T E X T

Social Media Use Is Linked to Brain Changes in Teens, Research Finds

    The effect of social media use on children is a fraught area of research, as parents and policymakers try to ascertain the results of a vast experiment already in full swing. Successive studies have added pieces to the pu    zzle, fleshing out the implications of a nearly constant stream of virtual interactions beginning in childhood.

    A new study by neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina tries something new, conducting successive brain scans of middle schoolers between the ages of 12 and 15, a period of especially rapid brain development. 

    The researchers found that children who habitually checked their social media feeds at around age 12 showed a distinct trajectory, with their sensitivity to social rewards from peers heightening over time. Teenagers with less engagement in social media followed the opposite path, with a declining interest in social rewards.

    The study has important limitations, the authors acknowledge. Because adolescence is a period of expanding social relationships, the brain differences could reflect a natural pivot toward peers, which could be driving more frequent social media use.

    “We can’t make causal claims that social media is changing the brain,” said Eva H. Telzer, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and one of the authors of the study.

    But, she added, “teens who are habitually checking their social media are showing these pretty dramatic changes in the way their brains are responding, which could potentially have long-term consequences well into adulthood, sort of setting the stage for brain development over time.”

    A team of researchers studied an ethnically diverse group of 169 students in the sixth and seventh grades from a middle school in rural North Carolina, splitting them into groups according to how often they reported checking Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat feeds.

    At around age 12, the students already showed distinct patterns of behavior. Habitual users reported checking their feeds 15 or more times a day; moderate users checked between one and 14 times; nonhabitual users checked less than once a day.

    The subjects received full brain scans three times, at approximately one-year intervals, as they played a computerized game that delivered rewards and punishment in the form of smiling or scowling peers. While carrying out the task, the frequent checkers showed increasing activation of three brain areas: reward-processing circuits, which also respond to experiences like winning money or risk-taking behavior; brain regions that determine salience, picking out what stands out in the environment; and the prefrontal cortex, which helps with regulation and control.

    The results showed that “teens who grow up checking social media more often are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from their peers,” Dr. Telzer said. Social sensitivity could be adaptive, showing that the teenagers are learning to connect with others; or it could lead to social anxiety and depression if social needs are not met.

    “They are showing that the way you use it at one point in your life does influence the way your brain develops, but we don’t know by how much, or whether it’s good or bad,” said Jeff Hancock, the founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, who was not involved in the study. He said that many other variables could have contributed to these changes. He described the paper as “a very sophisticated piece of work,” contributing to research that has emerged recently showing that sensitivity to social media varies from person to person.

    Over the last decade, social media has remapped the central experiences of adolescence, a period of rapid brain development. Researchers have documented a range of effects on children’s mental health. Some studies have linked use of social media with depression and anxiety, while others found little connection.

    Without more information about other aspects of the students’ lives, “it is challenging to discern how specific differences in brain development are to social media checking,” said Adriana Galvan, a specialist in adolescent brain development at the University of California Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study.

    Dr. Telzer, one of the study’s authors, described the rising sensitivity to social feedback as “neither good nor bad.” “It’s helping them connect to others and obtain rewards from the things that are common in their social world, which is engaging in social interactions online,” she said. This is the new norm,” she added. “Understanding how this new digital world is influencing teens is important. It may be associated with changes in the brain, but that may be for good or for bad. We don’t necessarily know the long-term implications yet.” 

 Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/

T E X T

Social Media Use Is Linked to Brain Changes in Teens, Research Finds

    The effect of social media use on children is a fraught area of research, as parents and policymakers try to ascertain the results of a vast experiment already in full swing. Successive studies have added pieces to the pu    zzle, fleshing out the implications of a nearly constant stream of virtual interactions beginning in childhood.

    A new study by neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina tries something new, conducting successive brain scans of middle schoolers between the ages of 12 and 15, a period of especially rapid brain development. 

    The researchers found that children who habitually checked their social media feeds at around age 12 showed a distinct trajectory, with their sensitivity to social rewards from peers heightening over time. Teenagers with less engagement in social media followed the opposite path, with a declining interest in social rewards.

    The study has important limitations, the authors acknowledge. Because adolescence is a period of expanding social relationships, the brain differences could reflect a natural pivot toward peers, which could be driving more frequent social media use.

    “We can’t make causal claims that social media is changing the brain,” said Eva H. Telzer, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and one of the authors of the study.

    But, she added, “teens who are habitually checking their social media are showing these pretty dramatic changes in the way their brains are responding, which could potentially have long-term consequences well into adulthood, sort of setting the stage for brain development over time.”

    A team of researchers studied an ethnically diverse group of 169 students in the sixth and seventh grades from a middle school in rural North Carolina, splitting them into groups according to how often they reported checking Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat feeds.

    At around age 12, the students already showed distinct patterns of behavior. Habitual users reported checking their feeds 15 or more times a day; moderate users checked between one and 14 times; nonhabitual users checked less than once a day.

    The subjects received full brain scans three times, at approximately one-year intervals, as they played a computerized game that delivered rewards and punishment in the form of smiling or scowling peers. While carrying out the task, the frequent checkers showed increasing activation of three brain areas: reward-processing circuits, which also respond to experiences like winning money or risk-taking behavior; brain regions that determine salience, picking out what stands out in the environment; and the prefrontal cortex, which helps with regulation and control.

    The results showed that “teens who grow up checking social media more often are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from their peers,” Dr. Telzer said. Social sensitivity could be adaptive, showing that the teenagers are learning to connect with others; or it could lead to social anxiety and depression if social needs are not met.

    “They are showing that the way you use it at one point in your life does influence the way your brain develops, but we don’t know by how much, or whether it’s good or bad,” said Jeff Hancock, the founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, who was not involved in the study. He said that many other variables could have contributed to these changes. He described the paper as “a very sophisticated piece of work,” contributing to research that has emerged recently showing that sensitivity to social media varies from person to person.

    Over the last decade, social media has remapped the central experiences of adolescence, a period of rapid brain development. Researchers have documented a range of effects on children’s mental health. Some studies have linked use of social media with depression and anxiety, while others found little connection.

    Without more information about other aspects of the students’ lives, “it is challenging to discern how specific differences in brain development are to social media checking,” said Adriana Galvan, a specialist in adolescent brain development at the University of California Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study.

    Dr. Telzer, one of the study’s authors, described the rising sensitivity to social feedback as “neither good nor bad.” “It’s helping them connect to others and obtain rewards from the things that are common in their social world, which is engaging in social interactions online,” she said. This is the new norm,” she added. “Understanding how this new digital world is influencing teens is important. It may be associated with changes in the brain, but that may be for good or for bad. We don’t necessarily know the long-term implications yet.” 

 Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/