By Mrs Lincoln (English and Psychology Teacher)

Every year, Royal Holloway (University of London) runs a national Psychology poster competition for Lower Sixth students. Emma Adsley and Sophia Potts (Lower Sixth) both entered as a team to represent BGS this year, with the competition question being, ‘How can Psychology help us shape healthier online behaviours?’

The task required them to collaborate in making a two-minute video and a corresponding poster to answer the competition question. On Wednesday 18th June, we travelled to the campus at Royal Holloway for them to present their poster. It was an extremely competitive event with around 40 schools participating. Emma and Sophia did a brilliant job of presenting their work to the judges (staff and researchers from the Psychology department at Royal Holloway). They had chosen to focus on the topic of cyberchondria, which is the anxiety that can arise from repeatedly searching for health-related information online. Some potential solutions they had considered were Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and psychoeducation.

Afterwards, they had the opportunity to listen to a talk from Dr Annie Bird, who conducts research at the university and spoke about her work using an augmented reality board game to improve adolescent wellbeing. We even got to see a demonstration of the game in action! Overall, the day gave both students the chance to see Psychology in action and get a taster of what Psychology at university can offer. The girls also got to work on their communication and presentation skills and they both represented the school in an extremely positive light!