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How schools are affected by the time changes

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How schools are affected by the time changes

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Walker, Tim. “Despite Proven Benefits, Starting School Later Remains a 'Tough Sell'.” NEA Today,

23 Nov. 2015

The chart Tim Walker uses demonstrates his charts of current times schools start in the correlation of how much sleep students get, and then his other chart shows “biological” times on age groups times in which shows their predicted sleep schedule as well as what time their school would start according to the schedule. Likewise, the charts demonstrate an almost unbiased form of information in which there is just factual information rather than opinion.

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"Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." This well-known proverb, say scientists from the University of Oxford, Harvard University, and the University of Nevada is only helping to make students' lives miserable. The conventional wisdom that going to bed early and getting up early leads to productivity and success is, in the case of teenagers at least, simply wrong. Paul Kelley, Steven Lockey, Russell Foster and Jonathan Kelley argue that letting students sleep and starting school later can lead to better health and academic outcomes.

Unfortunately, concerns about lack of sleep often get the brush-off from schools and even some parents who are quick to blame inattentiveness in school solely on teen behavior, laziness, general indifference, or all of the above. If only they went to bed earlier, concentration and attentiveness would improve. But in their report, the researchers say that schools are ignoring adolescent biology and are "systemically restricting the time available for sleep and causing severe and chronic sleep loss."

They're not alone. The chorus of voices in favor of schools starting later has been getting louder. In August, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued findings that lay out a stark and sobering picture of how sleep deprivation harms teenagers, a common problem among high school students especially. Adolescents who don't get enough sleep (CDC recommends 9-10 hours) have an increased risk of being overweight, suffering depression, and struggling academically.

Less than one third of U.S. students, however, are sleeping at least 8 hours on school nights and four out of five middle and high schools start their day before 8:30 a.m. A consensus has emerged among health experts that this is simply too early.

In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended middle and high schools delay the start of class to 8:30 a.m. or later, necessary to align school schedules to the biological sleep rhythms of adolescents.

"Chronic sleep loss in children and adolescents is one of the most common - and easily fixable - public health issues in the U.S. today," said Dr. Judith Owens, author of the AAP policy statement. "Delaying early school start times is one key factor that can help adolescents get the sleep they need to grow and learn."

"The teenage body is nocturnal," adds Dr. Denise Pope of Stanford University's Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success. "Their circadian rhythms are different from adults. So even starting school at 8:30 can make a huge difference."

Currently, only Alaska and North Dakota meet the 8:30 a.m. standard - barely. The average school start time in Alaska is 8:33. North Dakota is a couple minutes behind at 8:31. (Louisiana had the earliest start time - 7:40 a.m.)

In 2014, the University of Minnesota released a study that examined data from more than 9,000 students attending eight high schools in three states. The study found that attendance and academic performance in math, English, science and social studies improved at schools with later start times, while tardiness, substance abuse, and symptoms of depression declined. At Edina High School outside of Minneapolis - the first school in the country to shift to a later start (7:20 to 8:30 a.m.) - school counselors and nurses reported fewer students seeking help for emotional problems and physical complaints. Furthermore, 92 percent of parents in Edina said their teenagers were "easier to live with."

As most experts urge schools to begin school later than 8:30 a.m., the Oxford and Harvard researchers up the ante and recommend 10 a.m., which they say properly aligns with the "biological wake-up time" of a typical 16-year-old. That would mean 6:30 a.m. for a 10-year-old, so school for them should start somewhere between 8:30 and 9 a.m. A college freshman should have his or her first class between 11 and 11:30.

This "relatively simple step," the researchers insist, is both practical and necessary:
The synchronization of education to adolescent biology enables immediate advances in educational attainment and can be achieved with a relatively simple step that does not require new teaching methods, new testing or large additional expenditure...Good policies should be based on good evidence, and the data show that children are currently placed at an enormous disadvantage by being forced to keep to inappropriate education times.
Kelley, Lockley, and Foster acknowledge that deep-seated and largely false assumptions about teen behavior and the benefits of waking up early are obstacles to the acceptance of later school start times. Still, not many districts would describe the move as a "simple step." Legitimate, practical considerations have to be considered - the impact on bus schedules and after school programs, for example - and buy-in from educators, parents and the community is essential.

"Changing schools is hard, and getting schools to start as late as 9:00 or 9:30, when teenage bodies are actually only waking up, would be a tough sell," says Pope. "But the best thing is to take it slow and look at how changing schedules affects everyone. It's not just the students. It's teachers, bus drivers, everyone at school, and especially parents. When multiple stakeholders are around the table, you can make effective change."
Photos: Associated Press

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Despite Proven Benefits, Starting School Later Remains a 'Tough Sell' - NEA Today

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"Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." This well-known proverb, say scientists from the University of Oxford, Harvard University, and the University of Nevada is only helping to make students' lives miserable.

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Sciences, California Academy of. “Should Schools Start Later to Improve Academic Performance?”  KQED Education, 12 Oct. 2015

The California Academy of Sciences illustrate poor test scores with the correlation with the lack of sleep students get. Moreover, they use common terminology to describe symptoms of sleep deprivation, and how this affect students scores. Negative effects of sleep loss include impairments in mood, attention, memory, behavior and executive function. In addition, a lack of sleep may lead to an increase in caffeine use to counter the effects of drowsiness. As a whole, the California Academy of Sciences is trying to inform people of the negative outcomes when students don’t get enough sleep before school.

Moreover, the California Academy of Sciences uses associations to strengthen their argument such as, American Academy of Pediatrics in which they do studies and statistics to prove that students need to obtain more sleep in order to have a successful high school career, and not to obtain long term effects that show a direct correlation between sleep and certain diseases. Thus, diseases such as, heart disease, heart attack, heart failure, irregular heartbeat, and high blood pressure. These diseases have a direct correlation between sleep deprived teens, and later in their lives having these symptoms; as a result of these symptoms, this article strongly promotes schools to delay their school.

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http://ww2.kqed.org/education/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2015/10/20150808_wesat_high_schoolers_and_snooze_buttons_a_public_health_crisis_.mp3

High Schoolers and Snooze Buttons: A Public Health Crisis [NPR Weekend Edition]
This report describes new findings from health researchers about the consequences of schools having early start times.

Do Now

Should the start time of schools be moved forward? In what ways could a later start benefit teenagers, but also cost them? How would an earlier start time affect students?
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Learn More About Sleep and Academic Performance

In October 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement suggesting that school districts consider starting school after 8:30am. Currently, some schools start as early as 7am. With the option of a 0 period, or an optional class before 1st period, it can be even earlier. One reason for this schedule is a consideration for parents' work schedules, making it easy for parents to drive their kids to school. Many argue, however, that teenagers and adults do not function on the same sleep schedule. They say that students can find other ways to get to school: a small price to pay for getting enough sleep.

The proposal to push back when first period begins comes from concerns that starting school too early negatively affects teenagers. Studies have shown that middle and high school students with adequate amounts of sleep, 8-10 hours, have better test scores. This subject has been debated heavily since schools began starting earlier and earlier.

The AAP study found that most teenagers need sufficient sleep to cope with busy lives filled with school, sports, and extracurricular activities. According to this research, the ideal amount of sleep for the average teenager falls between 8.5 and 9.5 hours a night, and teenagers who receive adequate sleep benefit from better physical and mental health, safety, and academic performance. It also revealed that puberty causes a "phase delay" in teenagers, which shifts the time that teenagers fall asleep back by two hours. Because of this, the average teenager is expected to fall asleep after 11pm and wake up around 8am.

When students do not get enough hours of sleep due to the phase delay and waking up early, it can have a long term impact on students' health. A National Sleep Foundation poll reported that 28 percent of teenagers have fallen asleep in class at least once due to lack of sleep. Negative effects of sleep loss include impairments in mood, attention, memory, behavior and executive function. In addition, a lack of sleep may lead to an increase in caffeine use to counter the effects of drowsiness. Finally, this study found that sleep-deprived teens are at a higher risk of car accidents.

Many researchers agree that starting the school day later might be beneficial to young people. Lawrence Epstein, a medical director of Sleep Health Centers in Brighton, Massachusetts and an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, believes that "adequate sleep is essential to feeling awake and alert, maintaining good health, and working at peak performance." Starting later can allow youth to get the necessary amount of sleep, which is due to the natural late-to-bed and late-to-rise biology of teenagers. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, "Students with symptoms of sleep disorders are more likely to receive poor grades in classes such as math, reading and writing than peers without symptoms of sleep disorders." Getting enough sleep might lead to a decreased risk of car accidents, less depression and obesity, the prevention of illnesses like colds and flus that adversely affect academic performance, and generally improved mental ability. Although students can get more sleep by simply going to bed earlier, many need this time to finish homework. With a later school start time, students can have both: adequate time to prepare for the next day and a sufficient amount of sleep.

Photo by woodleywonderworks @flickr

On the other hand, there are some disadvantages to a later school day. Schools starting later would require schools to also end later. This would cut into extracurricular activities and sports that are an important part of many teens' lives. Balancing practices and games with homework might become a lot harder to juggle. Many teens also have to work after school to support their families, which would become very difficult with the later school times. In addition, many teenagers might go to sleep later at night if they don't have to get up as early, which would negate the value of the later school start time. Some argue that early school start times are beneficial because they prepare young people to get up early, like they will have to do in the work force. Another argument against a later school time states that it is an inconvenience for families since many parents take kids to school on their way to work. According to NPR's program All Things Considered, almost 50 percent of Americans kids walked or biked to school in 1969 but today the figure is only 13 percent. This data would imply that more parents might need school start times to align with their work schedules in order to transport their children to and from school.

More Resources

[ARTICLE] Older Children to Start School Later to Find Out If It Suits Their Biological Clocks
The circadian rhythm determines a person's sleep patterns every 24 hours and it seems that a person's circadian rhythm varies on their age, therefore school starting earlier interferes with older students' sleeping pattern.

[ARTICLE] Why School Should Start Later in the Morning
Sleep deprivation caused by early starts at school is a factor of obesity, depression, and a lower quality of life.

[ARTICLE] How Much Sleep is Just Right for Cognitive Function
AsapSCIENCE shows how our brains function after sleeping a night of 4 hours, 6 hours and 8 hours.

[VIDEO] The Science-Backed Reason Schools Should Start Later
This video talks about the consequences of sleep deprivation for adolescents and gives statistics on start times for schools.

Do Next
Do Next takes the online conversation to the next level: these are suggestions for ways to go out into your community and investigate how the topic featured in this Do Now impacts people's lives. Use digital storytelling tools and social media to share your story and take action. Make sure to tag your creations with #DoNowFirstBell.

Create an infographic: Illustrate the research and your own stance on the issue. Use a free online tool like easel.ly to visualize your data and support your position. Share on social media.

Interview other students: Ask them how they feel about starting school later in the morning. Use Vine or Instagram's video to create a series of short "man-on-the-street" statements that capture students' opinions on the issue. Share on social media.

Create a slideshow: Illustrate both the pros and the cons of starting school later in the morning. Use a free tool like animoto to pair your images with audio narration and share on social media.

Make a mini-podcast: Express and defend your opinion on this issue and upload to an audio sharing site like Soundcloud and share your creation on social media.

KQED Education partners with phenomenal organizations to bring you the Science Do Now activities. The Science Do Now is posted every two weeks on Tuesday. This post was written by the following youth from the Science News Team within the California Academy of Sciences' TechTeens program: Alex, Alvin, Avi, Darrah, Mathew, Maggie, Ori, and Sophie The TechTeens are youth leaders who use digital media to develop and communicate science stories for the public.
Should Schools Start Later to Improve Academic Performance?

Author

California Academy of Sciences

The California Academy of Sciences is a leading scientific and cultural institution based in San Francisco. It is home to an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum and research and education programs, which engage people of all ages and backgrounds on two of the most important topics of our time: life and its sustainability. Founded in 1853, the Academy's mission is to explore, explain and sustain life. Visit www.calacademy.org for more information.

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Should Schools Start Later to Improve Academic Performance?

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High Schoolers and Snooze Buttons: A Public Health Crisis [NPR Weekend Edition] This report describes new findings from health researchers about the consequences of schools having early start times. Do Now Should the start time of schools be moved forward? In what ways could a later start benefit teenagers, but also cost them?

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Putterman, Alex. “How School Start Times Affect High-School Athletics.” The Atlantic, Atlantic

Media Company, 12 Apr. 2017

Alex Putterman showed distinct bias towards his beliefs of keeping school on its normal routine. Thus, he begins his argument that schools already have late start once a week, so why should schools be delayed even later. Moreover, his main argument is in how starting later effects student athletes. Putterman bring up a point that community life revolves around public schools rather than vice versa. Thus, if schools would delay their school; then this would cause a dramatic change in after school curricular activities, and possible changes in parents work hours.

Also, Putterman brings up a strong argument that student will end up going to bed even later if schools push back their openings. This would be because of activities outside of school such as work and sports, so those hours would also have to be shifted back in order to accompany the school times. Furthermore, Putterman uses current high schools that have switched to a later start, and as a result negative repercussions of having later practices and games as a direct result of a later school day.

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Catching more sleep could help student-athletes catch more touchdowns, but some still argue sports schedules are a reason against moving back the first bell.

Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

On March 13, the board of education in Sag Harbor, New York, a wealthy town on the eastern end of Long Island, sat down to discuss what time local schools should start. The principal question in front of the board was simple: Should Pierson Middle-High School, which is located in Suffolk County, New York, maintain its 7:35 a.m. start time or push back the opening bell to allow students more sleep in the morning?

Later start times have long been a pet cause for the board member Susan Lamontagne, a health advocate and Sag Harbor parent. In 2013, Lamontagne founded the Long Island chapter of Start School Later, a national organization that lobbies school districts to alter their schedules. A year later, she led a successful effort to push back start times at Pierson by 10 minutes. Unsatisfied with that modest change, she ran for the board in 2016 promising even later bells.

Related Story

Why School Should Start Later in the Morning
Now she was again bringing the cause to Sag Harbor, and this meeting was the first step toward change. She knew there would be resistance-there always was-but she hoped Sag Harbor residents could get on board with an 8 a.m. start time. That was earlier than the pediatrician-recommended 8:30 a.m., but at least it was later than 7:35 a.m.

But when it came time for public input, Don O'Brien made it clear that resistance to a 25-minute delay would be hard to overcome.

"You are putting our student-athletes at a disadvantage by having them get out at 3 o'clock," O'Brien, a father of two Sag Harbor elementary-school students and a varsity soccer coach in a nearby town, told the board. "Every single contest that we play next year will be affected by a 3 o'clock time. Every practice and every single game."

Another Sag Harbor parent, Rich Perello, took the microphone and decried what he saw as the district's apathy toward athletics. "It seems like there's a disconnect here between the people who are making the decisions and the kids who actually want to play sports," he said.

In O'Brien and Perello's view, Pierson's athletic programs wouldn't survive delayed start times. Sag Harbor is located at the east end of Long Island, and its student-athlete must often travel long distances to games in other districts. Later dismissal, the parents worried, could make getting to games on time more difficult. Plus, O'Brien and Perello pointed out, Pierson students share some sports teams with neighboring high schools, and coordinating practice could be tough if those schools start and end at different times.

But Lamontagne, who views start times as a student-health issue, is just as fervent about her cause as O'Brien and Perello are about theirs.

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How School Start Times Affect High-School Athletics

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Catching more sleep could help student-athletes catch more touchdowns, but some still argue sports schedules are a reason against moving back the first bell. On March 13, the board of education in Sag Harbor, New York, a wealthy town on the eastern end of Long Island, sat down to discuss what time local schools should start.

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Tamminen, Jakke. “How a Lack of Sleep Affects Your Brain, from Your Personality to How You Learn.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 17 Oct. 2016

Jakke Tamminen shows a strong amount of bias towards the current problem most high schools students are having, and he illustrates how it is a burden on their education. Thus, in order to prove his point, a radio talk show host Peter Tripp would create a challenge in which he would deprived himself of sleep, and then illustrate how similar his personality changes when compared to a tired high school student. As a result, Tripp would go into a spiraling down direction in which he would end up losing his job, he would have troubles with his marriage, and other long term effect in which are not 100% in relation to his challenge.

Otherwise, Tamminen would also illustrate a medical twist in his argument in which he would explain how lack of sleep affects the brain. Likewise, he would accurately describe what parts of the brain relate to how kids learn, and how those are bogged down if they do not get enough sleep; thus, this strengthens his argument to the point in which no one could refute his claims.

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In 1959, Peter Tripp, a popular New York DJ, pledged to stay awake for 200 hours for charity while continuing to host his radio show.

Studies into sleep deprivation were rare at the time so no one knew what to expect. This made it a major event, not only for Tripp's millions of listeners, but also for the scientific community.

The subsequent impact of the "wakeathon" on Tripp's mind was far more dramatic than anyone had expected. The personality of a man normally described as cheerful and upbeat appeared to significantly change as time went by. By the third day he had become highly irritable, cursing and insulting even his closest friends. Towards the end of his endeavour, he began to hallucinate and exhibit paranoid behaviours.

But despite the concerns of the doctors monitoring him (and with the help of the stimulants they gave him), he persisted and finally went to bed after 201 hours of continuous wake time.

Modern laboratory studies have replicated some of the behaviours seen in Tripp as a consequence of sleep loss. Sleep deprivation or prolonged restricted sleep results in increasing irritability, worsening mood, and feelings of depression, anger, and anxiety. Some argue that sleep loss leads to heightened emotional reactivity.

Tired and emotional

Much like Tripp, who lashed out at his friends at the smallest inconvenience, sleep deprived participants in one study experienced greater stress and anger than rested control participants when asked to complete a simple cognitive test.

Brain imaging methods reveal why sleep deprivation can lead to irrational emotional responses. The amygdala, an area deep in the brain, is our emotional control centre. When sleep deprived participants were shown emotionally negative images, activity levels in the amygdala were as much as 60% higher than levels in those who were rested.

Shutterstock

The researchers also looked at how different brain areas were connected in these participants. They found that sleep deprivation had disrupted the connection between the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex. This was a critical insight as the the medial prefrontal cortex itself regulates amygdala function. Sleep deprivation appears to cause the amygdala to overreact to negative stimuli because it becomes disconnected from brain areas that normally moderate its response.

Sleepless in Las Vegas

Casino owners have known for years that tired gamblers make risky decisions. The bright lights, noise, and lack of windows are designed to stop you from noticing the passage of time.

In 2011, researchers at Duke University asked participants in a gambling experiment to improve each of several gambles. They could choose to do this by increasing the size of the highest possible gain, decreasing the size of the worst loss, or improving the probability of winning.

When participants had been deprived of sleep for just one night, they started do make fewer decisions that avoided loss, and more decisions that maximised potential gain. In other words, sleep deprivation made their gambles riskier and more optimistic. This change in risk taking behaviour was accompanied by changes in activity in brain areas that evaluate negative and positive outcomes.

Sleeping to learn

Another area of the brain that suffers dramatically from sleep deprivation is the hippocampus. This is a region critical for the storing of new memories. When people are deprived of sleep for even one night, their ability to memorise new information drops significantly. This was shown in one study to be due to an impairment in the hippocampus caused by sleep deprivation. When memorising a set of pictures, sleep deprived participants showed less activation in the hippocampus compared to rested participants. This deficit in the hippocampus could be caused by sleep deprivation reducing its ability to write in new information.

Shutterstock

Alternatively, the hippocampus may need sleep to move new information to be stored in other areas of the brain. In this case, lack of sleep may cause the storage capacity of hippocampus to fill up, preventing new information from being stored.

Lessons from the wakeathon

The story of Tripp has an unhappy ending. Shortly after his wakeathon his marriage broke down, and he eventually lost his job and career in radio. In 1964 his record was broken by Randy Gardner, a high school student from San Diego, who managed to remain awake for 264 hours.

Tripp's later troubles however are unlikely to be connected to his sleep deprivation as Gardner and others who later tried to beat the record did not report similar long-term detrimental effects. Nonetheless, there are lessons to be learned from Tripp's experience and from the latest discoveries in sleep science.

Many people aren't getting enough sleep as people sacrifice rest time to work, especially on devices which emit blue light. This light makes falling asleep more difficult, further eroding the quantity and quality of sleep.

We need to rediscover the value of sleep and appreciate the benefits it brings to our brains. Time spent sleeping is an essential investment towards being smarter, making better decisions, and leading a happier life. So get snoozing.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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4 ways not getting enough sleep affects your brain

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In 1959, Peter Tripp, a popular New York DJ, pledged to stay awake for 200 hours for charity while continuing to host his radio show. Studies into sleep deprivation were rare at the time so no one knew what to expect.

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Bui, Jimmy. “Should School Start Later?” Jimmy Bui Poly Sci Views, 1 Jan. 1970

This political cartoon illustrates the affects what an early start of the school day has on students. In this specific cartoon, the student is asleep while the angered teacher is making a valid point to the principle who is standing next to the sleeping student. Moreover, this symbolizes the effects on students who have to wake up early for schools, and thus not giving them enough time to sleep. Moreover, this is ironic because in this case the teacher is making the suggestion of starting school later; when it’s usually students making those suggestions. Likewise, this shows bias and supports the movement for a later start schedule through its obvious dialog between the teacher and the principal.

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Should School Start Later?

You're having a peaceful dream but turns into a nightmare when you hear the morning alarm telling you that it's time for school. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been persuading schools to start middle and high-school classes later in the morning. This can help adolescents get a good night sleep and they could improve academically. Many students have been trying to get their schools to change their hours because they don't get enough sleep. Kids are recommended 8 to 9 hours of sleep.

Typically schools tend to start at around 7:30 or 8:30 but that is very early for students. Teens have been making recommendations of school starting at around 9:30 or even 10:30. But if school started this late, we would have to also think about the negative effects of it. If usual school time ended at around 3:00-4:00, then the later time would end at around 5:00-6:00. Also those students in clubs and sports would get out even later. By the time they get home, they'll be all worn out and might be too tired to do their homework. Some might take the advantage of school starting late to sleeping more late. What's more important, the teens health or their education? If elementary schools start later than middle schools and high schools then why shouldn't high schools start at the same time too. High school is where grades have to be taken seriously. They are the key for getting to college. But it's not fair for students to come home from school with hours of homework and only get a couple hours of sleep. Elementary schools and middle schools only prepare us for high school. The grades we get in 1st grade-8th grade do not mean anything towards a college transcript. So why are high schools starting sooner than lower grade levels? Shouldn't they be started at the same time or switched around so that high school starts late and elementary schools start early?

Experiment: One of the websites that I have used (link at the bottom) has shown that researchers recently conducted an experiment on more than 9,000 students at eight high schools in states such as Minnesota, Colorado, and Wyoming. Their conclusion was if we move the school day later in the morning, it shows an increase in attendance, test scores, and grades in core subjects (math, english, science, social studies). There were also less tardies, substance abuse, symptoms of depression, and teen car crashes. So, starting school just doesn't help students physically and academically, but also helps less accidents.

My opinion on this is that school should not be started late because there are some negative effects of starting school late that can impact our community. Changing the school schedule can cause a change in traffic patterns, cause conflict with parent's work schedule, cause transportation issues, and limits the opportunities for after-school sports and other activities. It can be hard for high school students to find a part time job if they are being released late. I think they should just put up with it now because later those that go to college will have the opportunity of when they want to go to class. If we just change the school schedule, I think it's just going to be chaotic and problematic. It should just be left the way it is.

Symbolism : The lady symbolizes a teacher, the guy in the tie symbolizes a principal, and the kid symbolizes a student.

Exaggeration : The exaggeration is the student sleeping to show that many students sleep during the school day.

Irony: The irony in this political cartoon is the teacher is making the suggestion of starting school later when it's usually students making those suggestions.

http://choices.scholastic.com/story/should-schools-start-later
http://classroom.synonym.com/consequences-schools-starting-later-times-3852.html

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Should School Start Later? You're having a peaceful dream but turns into a nightmare when you hear the morning alarm telling you that it's time for school. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been persuading schools to start middle and high-school classes later in the morning.

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Trafford, Bernard. “'Letting Teenagers Start Late? Routine Is

Something They Have to Learn –
Deal with It'.” Tes, 2 Apr. 2017

Bernard Trafford demonstrates his lack of patience for students who want to have their school day starting later compared to its current start time. Thus, Trafford uses rhetoric in which he suggest that students will just switch their sleep schedule, and just stay up even later due to the school day starting an hour later. Likewise, he also uses his own past experiences on how he would treat the situations -- which he was not an early riser--, and thus this qualifies his argument for the fact that children / high schools will not obtain any more sleep if schools shift their schedules back another hour or two.

Moreover, Trafford also shows little sympathy for having to wake up early because, he too, was a child in which had the same start time children to today have. Thus, he uses evidence to support his claims of why schools shouldn’t start later through: his use of light affecting the sleep schedule, his own personal beliefs, and he illustrates how people’s jobs in the future won’t change their own inorder to make their workers happy. As a result, Tafford creates a valid argument in which is very bias towards not having schools starting later.

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Well, that's a relief. The Center for American Progress, a US thinktank, was the latest body (in 2016) to propound the theory that teenagers would learn better if they started school later.

I confess that I was worried as the evidence appeared to mount up: my gut feeling was that it was spurious science, and that we would do our pupils a disservice if we decided to fit the school day around kids who can't get out of bed.

So I welcome the publication of new research, far more authoritative, which finally debunks that myth.

According to a Tes article earlier this week, "academics from Surrey University and Harvard Medical School ... argue that delaying school times would simply cause most teenagers' internal clocks to drift later, and in a matter of weeks they would find it just as hard to get out of bed".

I'm sympathetic to those who aren't natural early risers. I'm not one who catches the worm, and find the winter grind of arriving at work before it's light pretty depressing, particularly when it's dark again by 4pm (which just goes to show how gritty and resilient we Northerners are).

I've never been one of those macho school leaders who's first into school and last out. I reckon I put the hours in: but not by being at my desk at sparrow's fart.

Conversely, at my advanced age, I don't actually sleep well: at this late stage of term (schools are still working up in the North East), my brain's so overloaded that I feel I spend half the night awake: when the alarm goes off, I'm asleep again, trying to catch up.

They'd just go to bed even later...

I'm sharing my middle-aged angst only to show that I can empathise with those who hate getting up. Nonetheless, my instinct chimes with this new research: starting late would mean finishing late, so teenagers would simply go to bed even later.

Adolescents, fighting hormones and who knows what else, are unlike other beings: but they are not so different from the rest of us that we should feel obliged to create a discrete timetable for them.

Currently anticipating the joy of retirement, I'll enjoy liberation from the tyranny of the alarm-clock and work schedule: after 39 years at the chalk face, I think I've earned that luxury. But the routine of work (and, come to that, school) is something we just have to live with. Deal with it.

I'm susceptible to light. I was starting to wake up early, with the dawn, until the clocks went forward last Sunday: Monday morning suddenly felt dark and cheerless again.

As it happens, the Surrey/Harvard researchers had something interesting to say about light. The later teenagers stay up, the more they use lights, and stare at screens. They would do better, say the researchers, to have brighter illumination during the day and turn the lights down (and screens off) at night.

As Tes reported: "The analysis took into account factors such as whether someone is naturally a morning or evening person, the effects of natural and artificial light on body clocks and the typical time of an alarm clock."

Even accounting for variables, they found that too much light and screen time in the evening adversely affects sleep. That matches precisely the growing body of research into sleep and mental health: poor sleep is linked to poor mental health.

"An hour before midnight is worth two after," my old Mum used to say. Have scientists carried out all that research just to prove the bleedin' obvious?

Maybe: but it's true and, if nothing else, they've nailed a silly lie based on dodgy science.

If they get enough sleep at the right time, teenagers indeed can get up and into school - and learn better, too. So that's the next challenge for schools and parents!

QED. I'm a whole lot happier.

Still, come the weekend, it'll be good to have a lie-in...
Dr Bernard Trafford is headteacher of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne, and a former chair of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The views expressed here are personal. He tweets at @bernardtrafford To read more columns, view his back catalogue Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow Tes on Twitter and like Tes on Facebook

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'Letting teenagers start late? Routine is something they have to learn - deal with it'

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Well, that's a relief. The Center for American Progress , a US thinktank, was the latest body (in 2016) to propound the theory that teenagers would learn better if they started school later.