A London academy has become the first school in Britain to introduce a 10am start after research showed that teenagers do not fully wake up until mid-morning.
Headmistress of the UCL Academy, Geraldine Davies, allows children to arrive at 10am but to leave at 5.30pm. She argues that the school, which has been open since September, is already seeing positive results. She told The Sunday Times: ‘Youngsters are turning up alert and ready to learn and are focused and engaged in lessons.
‘We have no hard data on exam results yet, since we have only been open six months, but the aim is to rigorously review the effects. Pupil and teacher surveys have so far been positive.’
There have been calls to expand the project across Britain after research from the school’s sponsors, University College London, Oxford and Harvard showed that teenagers are predisposed to go to bed later and waking between 9am and 10am. This pattern, named the adolescent ‘time shift’, continues until the body clock starts to change at the age of 21.
Pupils at the school, which is the first in the UK to be sponsored by a university, have had a positive response, with some adding that they are able to eat a nourishing breakfast and read through lessons before school starts.
