Slashdot Mirror


Later School Start For Teenagers Brings Drop In Absenteeism

krou writes "Monkseaton High School in North Tyneside, UK, began an experiment in October that saw its 800 pupils ranging in age from 13-19 attend school an hour later than normal, at 10am. Early results indicate that 'general absence has dropped by 8% and persistent absenteeism by 27%.' Head teacher Paul Kelley supported the idea because he believed that 'it was now medically established that it was better for teenagers to start their school day later in terms of their mental and physical health and how they learn better in the afternoon', and he now claims that the children are becoming 'happier better educated teenagers' as a result of the experiment. The experiment is being overseen by Oxford neuroscience professor Russell Foster. 'He performed memory tests on pupils at the school which suggested the more difficult lessons should take place in the afternoon. He said young people's body clocks may shift as they reach their teenage years — meaning they want to get up later not because they are lazy but because they are biologically programmed to do.'"

18 of 436 comments (clear)

  1. What About The Parents? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Funny

    Teens starting school later? Who's going to supervise the teen until they get to school? Won't somebody think of the parents?

    1. Re:What About The Parents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you don't trust her with it why don't you take it from her? :p

    2. Re:What About The Parents? by santax · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ok, I know this is /. and I know we all like to explain stuff and such. But dude, you don't tell a dad that his girl is gonna have sex one day. You just don't :(

    3. Re:What About The Parents? by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

      They don't get sarcasm? Oh, sorry - I was getting confused with yours.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:What About The Parents? by santax · · Score: 2, Funny

      Get of my trailerpark.

    5. Re:What About The Parents? by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Funny

      Who supervises them at 2am when the parents are sleeping? Why don't you start installing security cameras in their bedroom while you're at it? Oh, wait.

      I already do, and the camera in my daughter's bedroom is a nice little earner on the internet.

    6. Re:What About The Parents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Daddy?

    7. Re:What About The Parents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      my parents let me play outdoors

      I've never heard of that MMORPG.

    8. Re:What About The Parents? by garethwi · · Score: 4, Funny

      And I certainly don't want to know that nun's don't have sex. That's half of my video collection ruined.

    9. Re:What About The Parents? by HungryHobo · · Score: 5, Funny

      So don't delay!
      Buy your kid a world of warcraft account today!

  2. Re:Monitoring students changes the outcome? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Quantum tots

  3. Re:Real World by Rogerborg · · Score: 2, Funny

    Come on, this is the UK we're talking about here. Junior Assistant to the Deputy Permanent Undersecretary for Traffic Cones (North East Region) is about the peak of realistic ambition.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  4. Re:Are you kidding me? by s1lverl0rd · · Score: 2, Funny

    So, uphill both ways to your high school too, huh?

  5. Whatever happened to coal mining? by tjstork · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man, back in the good old days, when kids were ten, they went into the mills and the mines. Or on the ships. They were the ones that lit the fuses and ran because they were the smallest. They helped bring back lunch and stuff and they learned how to grow up to be real and hardy men. Now look at us.

    Repeal child labor laws before this present moral degradation is too late! I'm building a toy coal mine for my four year old in my backyard! We're going to play Black Lung and Cave In.

    --
    This is my sig.
  6. Don't forget by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 2, Funny

    And that's through 5 feet of snow while being chased by wolves.

    --
    Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
  7. Re:Wellington High School already does this by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 2, Funny

    While here in Austria, most schools start at 8am. The teenagers commit less crime in Austria, therefore the Austrians teens are happier than those whinny pimple faced Wellintonians. QED.

    --
    The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
  8. Re:I can totally understand this by m.ducharme · · Score: 4, Funny

    In my teen and college years I would get up around 14-15 (that's 2-3 PM for you americans) on weekends and it took a lot of effort to go from my teenage 9-10:30 wakeup to getting up at 7 for some lectures in college, the only reason I pulled that off was because unlike HS it was actually subjects I wanted to learn about instead of random classes that someone else had decided I needed to take and which were often watered down to the point where there was little to nothing interesting left, as an example our HS biology class seemed to spend more time learning what the leaves of different trees looked like than anything useful (come on, I don't need to spend several hours in early-morning classes to learn how to identify birch trees, they're all over the place).

    I don't normally nit-pick spelling and grammar, but what I quoted above from your post is one sentence. Please be kind to your readers and add proper punctuation! I actually tried to read that all in one breath. It didn't end well. ;-)

    --
    Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
  9. Re:I can totally understand this by SleazyRidr · · Score: 2, Funny

    I just figured it was because your English classes were in the morning.