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Teachers get exasperated at students—they don’t pay attention, they’re sleepy, they have bad attitudes. But improvement could be a matter of timing—just start school later. That’s according to a study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. [Citation to come.]
Beginning at adolescence, kids have what’s called a delayed sleep phase, where they start sleep later and sleep later in the morning. And they need plenty—about nine-and-a-quarter hours a night.
The researchers evaluated 201 Rhode Island high school students whose school pushed back its start time from 8 to 8:30. The kids completed a sleep habits survey before and after the time change.
After the delayed start, the percentage of students who said they got at least eight hours of sleep a night jumped from about 16 to 55 percent. Class attendance improved, and there were fewer visits to the health center for fatigue-related complaints. Plus, the number of students who said they felt unhappy, depressed, annoyed or irritated dropped significantly.
Before the study, teachers, coaches and administrators all resisted the later start. After, nearly all voted to keep it in place. A half-hour change for happier, better students? Seems like a good time for all.
—Cynthia Graber
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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11 Comments
Add CommentSomething simple that works. I hope it spreads like wildfire.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd like to see if the kids eventually adjust to this later start time and just start going to sleep later, thus defeating the purpose and requiring yet another even later start time a few weeks down the road. Perhaps another survey 6 mths later?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is bunk. My kids were and my grandkids are in bed and asleep by 7:30 pm everyday and are up at 6:30 am to shower, eat and get ready for school which begins at 7:30 am. Parents are responsible for good healthy habits. Instead of being afraid to ENFORCE discipline, try it. It only takes 3 consecutive days to establish a habit. But you can not give in on any occasion for any reason. TAKE THE TV OUT OF THE BEDROOM. Let them read instead. We are all our own worst enemy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSFpanama, I don't know if you're serious, but 7:30?? I'm 26 now and I still can't calm down and get to bed that early. There is a significant difference between young children adolescents!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, I now live and teach in South Korea where the students start school at 9:10am in elementary school, 8:30am in middle school, and 8am in high school. After school children from 1st-12th grade attend academies ("hakwons" in Korean) until 9, 10, even sometimes 11 o'clock at night. If anyone things American students are groggy and ill-behaved you should meet a Korean 8th grader.
I live in Costa Rica. And yes I am serious. It was hard for me to get used to but my days are basically up at sun up to get the workers started. Yes adolescents go through a change and seem to need to sleep in, but I found the same rule applied. If they turn off the lights and are in bed by 8 pm, they are ready to go in the morning. Also a lack of exxercise prevents the body from shutting down at night. But a well worked body is tired come nightfall
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is why science works: increased sample size. There will always be some who work best when they get up at 4:00 am. Some will work best when they get up at 7:30 am. But one study indicates that 30 minutes extra sleep/get ready time works for this particular community of students. This does not indicate that "This is bunk". It simply indicates that one study demonstrated one idea. I am a teacher at a middle and high school and we begin classes at 8:55 am and teach until 4:00 pm. 95% of our low-income, first generation college students get accepted into a four year university. I have no idea if a late start helps them, but maybe it does.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis study was done on high school students, not little kids, so the 7:30 bedtime (which I used with my daughter when she was young) isn't applicable here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've read elsewhere that teenagers do indeed have different sleep needs, and that a simple accommodation like this made a difference in their academic performance.
The science is clear - plenty of sleep is MUCH better than not enough. There are 1 million reasons the agrarian clock doesn't apply. Yes, my kids went to bed early and so did I (10pm lights out into 10th grade) but that's NOT the mainstream - it's extreme. Why fight it? Why NOT start school at 9am? Is it a teacher's union issue? Or a careerist family issue? Or simply bus schedules?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissfpanama, living in Costa Rica must be nice, but some of us live in northern latitudes. . . Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto etc. of North America don't see sunrise till near 8AM in the winter. and it's dam cold that early.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom our research there are behavioral sets or profiles that indicate they work better in the afternoon. These are the same kids that think as multi-taskers and have a hard time concentrating. But not all students would like the later start according to our findings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Australia the start time is 9:00 and it is a lot more relaxed.
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