"I benefited throughout my life from a school where the intellectual stimulus was enormous and there was full appreciation for non-academic pursuits."
	Lord Brittan

Sue Palmer Foundation lecture

Foundation Speaker Sue Palmer addressed a large group of parents in the Seldon Hall on Tuesday 30th June. An educational psychologist, Sue is one of Britain’s leading authorities on child development. In her books Toxic Childhood: How the Modern World is Damaging our Children and Detoxing Childhood: What Parents need to Know to raise Happy, Successful Children she notes her concern that rapid changes in our culture, prompted in particular by the digital revolution, have damaged our children.  In her second book she went on to suggest strategies that would overcome the harmful aspects of these changes.  Along the way, however, she became particularly aware of the harm that was being caused to boys.  This led to her latest work, 21st Century Boys: How Modern Life is driving them off the rails and what we can do to bring them back on track which was the topic of the talk.

Sue Palmer made the point that boys and girls learn differently, and that boys needed physical stimulation, a competitive environment and a range of activities to keep them interested.  She felt that Habs was well placed to meet these needs, with magnificent grounds for boys to explore and a remarkable range of extracurricular activities to keep them interested.  And we know that our boys love to compete with each other!

The Foundation Lecture series is designed to build stronger links with our community of parents and Old Boys, so that in working together we can make the school even better than it is now.