New 10am school trial aims to help sleepy teens
12/11/2009
By Matt Gardner
A new experiment has been launched at a school in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, to start school at 10:00 GMT each day following a thumbs-up from pupils, teachers and parents.
The five-month trial run being carried out by Monkseaton High School in the north-east town aims to avoid the situation involving near-sleepwalking students every morning at 9:00 GMT, meaning that instead, pupils can have a good breakfast before starting lessons an hour later.
Dr Paul Kelley, who is the headmaster at the institution, explained that cutting-edge research led him to make his decision, which underlined how nine-and-a-half hours of sleep is the best amount for any child looking to have peak performance the following day.
The decision to allow kids to stay in bed longer was inspired by Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at Brasenose College, Oxford.
He said in his research: "Sleep provides all of us with our sense of wellbeing and the faculty that helps make us human: our extraordinary capacity for creativity and innovation."
The strategy may be good for children studying in West Virginia, following research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month which discovered that the state''s inhabitants were getting the worst quality of sleep in the entire US.
