I thought this whole paragraph in the Guardian yesterday was fascinating. It was written by Paul Kelley of the Oxford's Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences :
It's a common belief that adolescents are tired, irritable and uncooperative because they choose to stay up too late and are difficult to wake in the morning because they are lazy. The real problem is their biological timing system — their body clock — which shifts their wake/sleep times to two to three hours later in the day than might be expected. Adolescents should be sleeping in two to three hours later than their school or work schedules allow — instead, they regularly lose a few hours of sleep. This is unnecessarily risky when we know that more than 50% of all mental illness starts in adolescence, and those illnesses include schizophrenia, psychosis, eating disorders, panic attacks, substance abuse and bipolar disorders. When school starts are moved later it's not just performance that improves: health does as well.
The phenomena of lethargic early-morning teenagers is one I know only too well. I know I am not alone.
But if Paul Kelley and his team are right why do secondary schools start their working day at 9?
Why not 10?
Why are we getting this so wrong if such an obvious solution (including, as a bonus, to traffic congestion, at least in the morning) is readily available?
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Victorian need to indoctrinate children in working hours?
From my experience of teaching teenagers, this doesn’t ring true. The first lesson was usually the most productive.
That wouldn’t necessarily negate the argument though. The first lesson in a 10am start would likely still be the most productive and possibly more so than is currently the case, just the day wouldn’t go downhill quite so much as it does.
SO all the parents dropping their kids off at school onto work, would either start late and finish late, or outsource this task.
I was considering secondary school – and think most can make their own way by 10
Pick up is then easier for most, I would add
I can recall seeing a TV programme 25 years ago – when I was one of said adolescents – regarding US research which had come up with the same finding. The programme followed a school which changed its hours accordingly and saw rises in attendance and ‘performance’ etc.
Nothing like a lesson that no-one wants to learn.
I’m sure Kelley’s work follows on from similar research from the US I saw reported earlier this year, Richard. The same points were made then about the US education system.
Having experienced the same issues as you when my own kids were younger I – like many millions of parents – recognise this “condition” only too well. Yet another social construct (the “school day”) being passed off as a mental or physical condition/sickness (lethargy and laziness in kids).
As to why it happens, surely that largely relates to it fitting in with the working time of adults, and particularly the middle classes, form the days when many had jobs that started at 9am. And to be honest that probably still suits a lot of adults (including teachers) nowadays.
Mind you, I speak as someone who had a morning paper round from the age of 11 to 15 that required me to get up at 6.30am, deliver papers over a 3.5 mile circuit (in the days when Sunday papers were so big that I could hardly lift my paperbag onto the rack on my bike), get home, get changed and have breakfast and then cycle another 3 miles to school for 9am. My sleeping pattern has never recovered!
And I admit I was always an early riser – but that clearly does not work for my sons, or actually very much for my wife
So I work (write) around them
Ditto my wife 🙂
Teenage boys are very vulnerable to mental health issues and I often let my son sleep in for as long as possible (7.30 am). We still largely have an education system reflecting Victorian mores and there is a lot of change needed in my view such as longer lunch breaks (so teachers can recoup as well!).
I suspect it’s because the bean counters, with their Micky Mouse MBA’s, continue to believe,against all the collective evidence of human existance, that quantity and quality are one and the same thing.
Ideally, children should come home from school to Mum and home made soup, quality family time, a little homework, Dad giving wise advice about life. But my children and their offspring, well a touch of chaos, letting the young stay up late, they are then knackered in the morning, parents grabbing a bite, shouting, shuffling, muttering. Somehow it works for them, but I can’t stand it. Family has to be run like an army, organised and EARLy to bed. But I am an old fashioned person. But we love each other and I have to keep my mouth shut.
Paul Kelley’s suggestion is nonsense. If the school day started later, those struggling adolescents without any (self or parentally-imposed)discipline would simply stay up later, and the problem would still be there.
Clock hours are arbitrary numbers anyway – as demonstrated by Daylight Savings Time. It doesn’t matter what the number on the clock is when school starts – the issue is whether the child has had enough sleep. And that’s the responsibility of the parent(s).
Good to see Victorian principles are alive and well
Not sure about Victoria principles. Sounds more like a pre enlightenment, evidence free, faith based position.
Not sure whether that was a just an ad-hominem attack, or whether you don’t think it’s the responsibility of parents to see that their children get enough sleep.
Do you think it isn’t?
I thought it was a fatuous comment and treated it as such
Great counter argument that, Richard.
Martin Audley,
Very well. I’ll try to Janet and John it for you.
Precisely which part of the second sentence in the paragraph quoted in this blog article, from the research conducted by Paul Kelly, are you having problems with?
The argument Kelley is making, based on actual evidence and research, is that the issue has nothing to do with parental practice. The blatent clue is to be found in the words ” The real problem is their biological timing system…”
Do you have credible and researched counter evidence to offer? Because relying on straw man argument just does not cut it.
You haven’t answered the only question I posed. Will you answer it?
I have alive, which does not revolve around you
No wonder you think parents have absolute authority
You obviously do on every issue and do with everyone with whom you come into contact
Do you believe it is ultimately the responsibility of parents to ensure their children have enough sleep?
The question is naive
It assumes, for example, there are parents
Then it assumes they have full authority over their teenagers
And that such absolute authority is desirable when teenage years are necessarily a transition to independence
So fr Young children the answer is necessarily yes
For older children these are issues of negotiation
Unless alienation is your aim
I think that is a great answer, Richard. As a teacher much of what went on in the classroom was negotiation and this transition to personhood can be quite fierce with boys and as a parent there can be breakdowns of communication over this which can get stuck in a rut-it’s far from easy!
Of course, at the margins, i.e a teenager that insists on staying up all night to play computer games things can get trickier and issues of computer addiction are becoming a major social problem and will probably get worse-in these cases outside support is often needed though negotion has to be maintained throughout.
I would much rather a shorter summer holiday and longer half terms
I guess there does need to be an official start time, but yes, why 9am, or indeed 8:30?
And why do we still have long school holidays in the summer? The children are not out gathering the harvest any longer (if they ever were). The first few weeks or so of the next academic year is spent getting children back to where they were at the end of the previous July.
Quite so, Andrew -when I was teaching I very much preferred the idea of a four week summer holiday but many teachers were against this. Perhaps if the conditions of service and daily stress levels were ameliorated teachers would feel different. I would also support a longer lunch break and shorter afternoon, or afternoons focused on extra-curricular activity.
(Simon Q as above)
Hey – I had to get to get to school for nine o’ clock! If it was good enough for me, then it’s good enough for them! 🙂
Seriously though, I don’t know if the school day actually starts earlier in my part of the country because the school day ends at three! I don’t know if this is the case elsewhere.
I do think a later start for school is well worth exploring though. If it is beneficial, then why not?
It’s 8 or 8.30 in many places. The idea is that they are more docile in the morning and byt he time they are fully awake, they will soon be gone .
It’s not only the start of the school day that needs to be reconsidered.
In some European countries the school age is much older but they still end up as well educated as our children (if not better) and have less stress and pressure put on them, which is probably why our children’s mental health is suffering more. Children still need time to be children, to be able to play and grow emotionally and intellectually.
No British government has managed to move away from the Victorian model of schooling and it is damaging our children.
Agreed
I very strongly think children could benefit from more play and much less homework when young
Children so start school far to early in this country and yes they need more play and nurturing in those early precious years. But a lot of parents have to work and do use school as a child minding service. If only the rich should breed because they have Nannies and can send their little ones to Monttessori schools to thrive and develop it will be a sad day. Young families struggle and they don’t always have a family network. Their lies our future, to give each child a deserving start in life is so important. Don’t bully your children to reach high grades, they have enough stress in life, ask them to do the best they can. Pontificating over, little house on the prairie at my house.
Spell check my theirs and there’s .