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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.'"

12 of 436 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What About The Parents? by Cryacin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who says kids need to be supervised? I was left without supervision as a young adult on lots of occasions. I still have all 10 fingers and toes.

    But then again, my parents gave me repsonsibility and consequences for my actions from a very young age. It's time to stop treating young adults as toddlers, and give them a bit of leeway to be just what they are. Young Adults.

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  2. Re:Real World by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe instead of training them for a life of drudgery, we could let kids be kids.

  3. Re:Real World by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What is the reality of the "real world"? There are shifts at all hours of the day. Making everything 9-5, 8-4, etcetera doesn't even make sense traffic wise. And how will work-from-home affect things?

    Now, I can agree that many kids will eventually work office jobs, but hardly all of them. And shouldn't the school day be structured in the way best times for them? I mean, it is said schools were once structured around the realities of factory life, things like hearing a period bell and shuffling to the next station and what not - but is the reality for most adults factory work anymore either?

    The real-world changes. Often times because of a new generation with different ways of thinking.

    Schools should be structured to teach effectively. Not to emulate the current workplace in superficial ways for no real good reason.

  4. Re:Real World by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    High school is not supposed to be exactly like the real (employment) world. It is supposed to teach children stuff like mathematics and grammar. If this can be done better by starting lessons an hour later and shifting the more difficult subjects to the afternoon to accomodate (what appears to be) biological facts - then great.

    Having teachers, specific schedules en sitting together with 30 of your peers is not exactly like the real world either.

  5. Re:What About The Parents? by tirefire · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless your daughter becomes a nun, she will almost certainly have sex at some point in her life. As a parent, this is beyond your control. Not only that, but you can't control *when* she has sex, either.

    The only thing you can control is whether she'll have to worry about hiding her sex life (or lack thereof) from you or not. As her parent, this is up to you, but it's been my experience that girls tend to be less worried about using condoms and choosing good partners when their #1 worry is Mommy And Daddy Finding Out.

    Source(s): My own rebellious teenage years.

  6. Re:What About The Parents? by mikael_j · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what you're saying is that since my parents let me play outdoors (including both downtown and in the woods) from an early age and pretty much didn't supervise me at all from about age 12 I've clearly failed completely at life? Or could it be that the level of supervision needed is dependent on how well parents have raised their children earlier in the childrens' lives? Nah, that sounds crazy, I'd better go quit my job and pick up a good old fashioned heroin addiction so as not to become a problem for your hypothesis...

    --
    Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
  7. Re:What About The Parents? by aussie_a · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Everything you've done with your wife is something your little is likely do at least once. And then some.

  8. Same shit by bwashed75 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If 10am is the new 9am then 1am is the new midnight. Give them some time to adapt and they'll still be late for school

  9. Re:What About The Parents? by EL_mal0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know, not all teens have sex. Some of us even chose not to have sex in our teenage years. You're right that parents cant control when teens have sex, but parents can have a huge impact, good and bad, when it comes to how children think of sex and when they choose to have it.

  10. Re:What About The Parents? by Eivind · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Untrue. You have a choice: Do you want to actually, you know, PARENT your kid, or do you instead decide to panic, and thus leave that task to others. You can behave like a sane human being, and odds is, your kid will be able to talk to you, including about sex and issues surrounding it, such as pregnancy-avoidance. If you're real lucky, they might even consider your opinion borderline relevant.

    OR you can run in circles, scream and shout, and thus ensure that your child will -not- ever opt to ask *you* about such issues. Instead, she'll get her information from whatever sources she has, be that the internet, films and movies, or friends.

    The parents of my first girlfriend, refrained from panicking. And that was a good thing. It meant the first time she had sex, it was with a boy she knew well and trusted, someone who'd been her boyfriend for months (me), and not, say, in the backseat of some car, intoxicated after a party. It meant she took advantage of the condoms her parents had left in a drawer, and explicitly said they never count and would NOT notice if any went missing. It meant lateron she said "yes" when her mom asked if an appointment with the doctor to get a prescription for the pill would be a good thing. It meant not having to hide, being able to be who we -where-, and overall improved the entire experience for everyone involved.

    Panicking is *very* rarely the best choice for a parent. Least of all about something as utterly normal as a teenager developing sexuality.

  11. Re:What About The Parents? by amplt1337 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're right.
    Your daughter is completely unattractive to everyone and will probably die embittered and alone, having never known the intimate touch of another human being.
    ...what, that isn't a happier thought for you?

    --
    Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
  12. Re:What About The Parents? by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a daft idea called chastity that's being kept alive and well by feminists.

    You don't know a lot of feminists, do you?

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