Community Gateway has supported Cardiff University student Hayley Moulding with her proposal to work with schools in her local community to promote the importance of sleep to young people.

In March 2016 Hayley was voted winner of the Gold Zone 'I'm a Scientist get me out of here' prize which gave her £500 to take her research into Grangetown Primary School and promote sleep as a science of great importance, need, focus and current opportunity. Hayley said of the study:

"The significance of sleep in our daily routines is under-represented and misinterpreted as an excuse to laze around. The fundamental need and dependence of sleep in something I believe wholeheartedly needs to be reinforced in the minds and lives of children internationally. The essential health benefits, academic, social and occupational benefits associated with sleep cannot be disregarded"

Hayley devised a strategy to make sleep fun so that the children could actively engage with the study. With help from Community Gateway she created postcards that were delivered to the school to enable children to ask her a question and to tell her what they dream about, ensuring that she had an open path to discuss sleep with them in the school classroom. During the sessions the children made dream-catchers, designed pillow cases and class dream-bed sheets and had the option of hands-on crafts alongside brain hat-making and cuddly toys there to 'talk' about their sleep.

After the study Hayley said:

"I thoroughly enjoyed the experience even with the challenges of talking to 30 9-10 year olds about a topic so rarely touched upon. I already plan to run more activities in Sleep Awareness Week in March next year. This opportunity has inspired me to deliver my project in more contexts, to focus on public engagement as an inherent part of work and PhD and to never stop being excited by and interested in the minds of children!"

For more information on the sleep study or any of Community Gateway's other projects then please contact: communitygateway@cardiff.ac.uk