Dr Suzanne Zeedyk and John Carnochan discussed the topic of brain development in their videos highlighting that when babies are first born their brains are still developing and portrayed the importance of this stage in a child’s life as it enables them to understand how to communicate and respond to other people. In the teaching profession, I believe this is essential knowledge for us to have as it gives us the ability to identify any issues within children’s brain development/ progress which otherwise people wouldn’t know about. It also looked at the importance of doing simple things such as smiling at a child and making eye contact with them when growing up as it helps creates links for relationships. However, it is important to acknowledge that not all children will have experienced this as a child and therefore might struggle to communicate how they feel to a teacher. As a teacher, the importance of making sure resources are accessible for all children of all background is essential.

Moving on, the Sugar Crash video shocked me significantly. I had no existing knowledge about this topic and when watching the video, I realised how damaging sugar can be. Things such as 42 million 5 year olds in Ireland being obese in 2013 is shocking however, it was interesting to see this broken down into what was being consumed. This video, in particular, stresses the fact that whilst something may be ‘low fat’ it can be, and usually is, filled with added sugars. Sugar Crash focussed on the physical and mental development of children consuming so much sugar and highlighted the food and health aspect of Health and Wellbeing and the importance of children acknowledging how fatty foods can be.