Why school needs to start later

By Gabby Goodier; Co-Founder of Same Page Co + Clinical Psychologist

3 minute read

One of the most common complaints I hear from parents of tweens/teens is the struggle to get them out of bed in the morning or, worse still, get them to go to sleep at a reasonable hour at night.  The conflict, the bribery, the exasperation, that centres around a teens want to stay up later and sleep in longer.  And as much as many might see this as a sign of rebellion or disrespect, it couldn’t be further from the truth and it’s actually developmentally normal and out of their control… let me explain.

The truth about sleep

Sleep is one of the most important parts of our daily life and yet it is also one of the most misunderstood.  Sleep patterns, or chronotypes, change across our lifespan. For example, infants and children are considered “larks”, in that they wake up early and go to sleep early, whereas adolescents are “owls”, staying up late and waking late.

Sleep patterns are controlled by a complex web of hormones and brain signals which are regulated by our different maturational stages and yet when it comes to our teens and their brains, we unknowingly force them to abide by the adult chronotype with rising early for school.

I can hear the argument of, "well if they just went to bed early, then surely this wouldn't be a problem?" Unfortunately, the teen brain doesn't work that way and it actually holds onto this pattern of late nights and sleep-ins, whether they want it to or not, resulting in a shrunken sleep period and chronically tired teens (they lose 2.75 hours of sleep daily).

One of the reasons for this is melatonin, a hormone that is critical to inducing sleep.  Melatonin is actually released two hours later at night for our teens than it is for adults.  It also stays in their system longer, which is why it’s so hard to wake them in the morning!

If we were to let a teens brain do the talking, it would advocate for 9 to 10 hours of sleep per night.  Researchers from The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention concur with this and recommend that adolescents get 8.5 to 9.5hrs sleep per night.  However, only about 15% of teens actually get that much sleep on a regular basis.  

Why do they need so much sleep?  Well, there is actually so much going on in a teens brain in terms of growth, learning and development, they actually need more sleep than we do or our younger children for this to occur!

Sleep and learning

In addition to chronically tired teens, the other factor to consider is the role that sleep plays with learning.  Awake/rest states, like sleep, have been shown to strengthen learning.  For example, researchers at Brown examined the effect of sleep on motor learning that accompanies piano lessons and compared brain scans of participants who learnt finger movements right before they went to sleep, versus those who learned the same movements but didn’t go to sleep immediately after.  The researchers discovered that the participants who “slept on it” showed better accuracy than those who didn’t.  In other words, learning just before sleep not only improves consolidation, it aids performance.

We also know that sleep promotes memory consolidation and problem-solving, whereas a shortened amount of sleep fuels impulsivity, decreased empathy, self-harm, depression and an increase in the use of stimulants, like caffeine and nicotine and in sedatives like alcohol. 

When we pay attention to the science, it's hard to argue for maintaining the status quo with our teens and school start times.

The argument for a later start time at school

Pushing back the school start time not only improves the quality of a teen’s sleep, it also boosts attendance and academic performance, according to studies in US schools. 

In a recent study in the US demonstrating just this, students wore wrist activity monitors that measured their sleep duration.  Researchers measured the students pre and post the change in school start time when a Seattle school pushed back the start from 7:50 to 8:45am.  According to the monitors worn, students went to bed around the same time and with the introduction of the later start time, students were able to sleep for an extra 34 minutes on average per day. 

This extra sleep was correlated with greater daytime alertness, 5 percent higher grades on average and improved class attendance.

The RAND research organisation even goes so far as to estimate that a later school start time could contribute $83 billion to the US economy over 10 years, due to improved academic performance and reduced accident rates!  Another powerful argument to re-examine the current approach.

Let’s also look at the argument for what happens when teens don’t get enough sleep.  Essentially, it’s nothing good.  We know that sleep deprivation inhibits the necessary synaptic pruning or prioritising of information.  More than this, studies have shown that a lack of sleep can have a lasting impact on our teens and can contribute to anything from juvenile delinquency to depression, obesity, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. 

Studies have even shown that teenagers who had trouble sleeping at ages 12-14 were 2.5 times more likely to report suicidal thoughts at ages 15-17 than teens with good sleep habits.  As I said, nothing good.  So if schools won’t budge on start times, what can they do?

If not later, than let’s look to the timetable

As much as changing the start time is aligned with the latest in neuroscience and would work with our teens and their educational experience, we can look to changes in how we set up their timetable.  A common assumption is that students are more alert in the morning and this is when the most demanding and cognitive loaded subjects should be taught.  For our teens, this assumption is wrong.  So isn’t it time to consider loading the morning sessions with assembly, sport, or form time to ease our teens into the more cognitively challenging topics later on in the timetable?

Try to hold this in mind, a 7am alarm for our teens is the equivalent of a 5am start for you and me!  This has consequences for our teens.  A study from the University of Toronto compared the cognitive performance of mid-morning vs mid-afternoon in teens and adults.  The test scores from teenages increased by 10 percent from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, whilst in adults, they declined by 7 percent.  

New research has also shown that on average a teen’s brain works best in the middle of the day when asked to perform abstract, logical or problem-solving tasks.  The researchers looked at 500 000 exam paper results in the UK over a 5 year period and found that STEM students performed best at a 1.30pm time slot.

For our primary aged children, we know a timetable with taxing subjects loaded to the morning is more beneficial - think an english block or numeracy hour - their brains are ready to go. Generally, primary years timetables allow for this structure and understand the value so why is it that our senior or high school timetable loads are not flexibly allowing for what we know to be true about optimal learning? 

It’s clear that moving the more demanding subjects for our teens to later in the day is one step in the right direction, but what else would be helpful?

Well it’s not just sleep that helps learning, simply being in a restful state helps. 

Think a mindful walk in nature, a mindfulness meditation to start the day, a yoga class, the list is endless.  Essentially tasks that don’t tax the brain and allow teens to engage in a restful state is a wonderful way to allow students to rest and let their minds wander and recharge before a big day of learning.