Learning at home: Some Ergonomic Handy Hints!

Creating and maintaining good habits take practice and time – so after our first few days of learning at home, we are encouraging all girls to take a moment to reflect on the spaces that they have chosen to work in. While this change of location can be great in lots of ways – mufti, for one thing – we all have a personal responsibility to pause for a second and think about looking after our bodies too, especially our eyes, our neck and back and our wrists just to name a few!

Setting up each day

Take a moment to set yourself up as ergonomically as possible before you start using a laptop or device each day.  

• Be seated comfortably with your back supported in a chair and the laptop on a table or desk. Keep regularly accessed items close by.
• Centre the laptop directly in front of you with a comfortable viewing distance.
• Ensure the laptop is raised so you can comfortably look at the screen with your neck in a neutral position.

Remember, making and maintaining good postural habits are key. Take the time to adopt a few changes in your day for a safe and healthy approach to laptop use. 

Posture

Prolonged sitting and laptop use stress the body, so consider: 

• When you can incorporate postures other than sitting into your day? Walking and movement activities, leisure activities and eating should all happen away from the laptop.
• Alternating your posture between tasks whenever you can and take regular, short breaks away from the laptop, including taking time to perform gentle stretches and exercises.
• Relaxing your head, neck and shoulders as much as possible when using a laptop.
• In between lessons, everyone should stand up, have a stretch, walk around a little or even dance in your bedroom for three minutes! (This is like the walk from one side of the school to the other that you do each day between lessons).

Tips

As you sit down at your desk to get ready for the start of each lesson:

• Consider your arm position—elbows should be at about 90 degrees.
• Be body aware—keep your arms and wrists straight—take the pressure off.
• Break from continuous typing every 15 minutes.
• Rest your eyes frequently — look up, look down, look at something in the distance, take a break, blink often.
• Stretch— roll your neck, wriggle your shoulders and stretch your arms.

Our classrooms in the Secondary School have these posters which provide examples of stretches that might help some students. Download a copy of the poster here.

Holly Gyton
Deputy Head of School