Influence Of Later Start Time In High School On Graduation

In the UK, to organize teenagers for the future, they go to high school to complete their education. However, in command to do so they have to be at school on time and they are forced to wake up early. This makes it a task for teenagers to focus at school because they are sleep deprived, often resulting in lower exam results, for that reason, the start time of schools should be delayed because it will give students more sleep, meaning higher levels of alertness and attention spans in school.

“After puberty there is a biological shift in an adolescent’s internal clock of about 2 hours, meaning that a teenager who used to fall asleep at 9:00 pm will now not be able to fall asleep until 11:00 pm.”As a result of this it means teenagers will need to wake up 2 hours early in the morning. So if a teenager needs nine and a half hours of sleep, how could they possibly happily get up at around 6:30 – 7:00 am? This is ridiculous, its complete insanity. “Research has shown over and over again that teenagers do better and feel better in schools that start later” said Ingvi Hannar Omarson. Not a more true speech has ever been said. In many schools, the transition from primary school to secondary school is accompanied by an earlier start time. According to nationwidechildren.org, some high schools start as early as 8:30 am meaning that some teenagers have to get up as early as 6:30 am to get ready for and travel to school. It is staggering to think that if the average teenager goes to bed at 11 pm – which would mean that they only get 6 and a half hours sleep, which is definitely not enough for a brain to function properly in a classroom. Furthermore, the amount of homework and studying a teenager needs to do causes a lot of stress and therefore leads to later nights. Surely this means that they are sleep deprived and that is why schools should have a later start time.

Research that verywellfamily.com has took out has many benefits to a teenagers mental health if school started later, some of these include that teens may be more expected to get the suggested amount of sleep and that a later start time could help teens sleep during their natural sleep/wake cycles. This would really boost their alertness and energy levels. Also enough sleep could help teens be more attentive during the school day, which could boost their overall end of year results. This could lead to a better future. All of this means sleeping longer could reduce health-related issues that accompany sleep deprivation. Furthermore arriving home later in the afternoon may mean teenagers will spend less time home by themselves and could cut the probability teens will connect in unhealthy conduct. It also suggests that the average teen would eat healthier as they would have more time to make breakfast in the morning and they wouldn’t have to rely on caffeine to stay alert, Surely this means that all good things would happen if only school started a few hours later.

The statistics of a later start time in school prove just how much it improves attendance and school exam results.” Linda Clarck and McKeever wanted to study school start times, graduation rates and attendance rates for 30,000 students in 29 high schools across seven USA states.” They found that after a delayed start time was put in at these high schools, 2 years later, the average attendance rates and graduation rates had improved massively.”For example, the average graduation completion rate was 79 percent before the delay start was implemented and it was 88 percent afterward.” This clearly just show how much better the students improve while having a later start time, leading them to a greater future.

Although some might say that teenagers are just lazy and that the school schedule is already good enough, and that teens should just “go to bed earlier”. This is completely wrong as it’s scientifically proven that teenagers have a shift of 2 hours, so it is really staggering to think that some people may think that teenagers are just “lazy” when they are doing something that is completely natural.

To conclude, there is so many positive reasons and scientific evidence of why school should start later. Therefore if teenagers had just 20 minutes more sleep they would become mentally healthier, and physically healthier, their grades would go up and overall they would feel allot better in person.

The websites I used are:

• Kibin.com
• nationwidechildrens.org
• verwellfamily.com
• uk.mobile.reutors.com
• sciencealert.com