New Study Examines Whether Starting School Later In The Day May Help GCSE Pupils

Some GCSE students are to test whether starting school at 10am could help them perform better at school.

Sleeping in late is seen as a rite of passage for teenagers.

And now a new trial will examine whether deviating from traditional early start times in schools could help benefit a teenager’s school work and wellbeing.

Experts from the universities of Birmingham, Oxford and Aberdeen are recruiting schools to take part in the study.

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The trial will look at teenagers’ sleep patterns and test whether a later school start time could benefit them.

Professor Paul Montgomery, lead researcher from the University of Birmingham, said: “We want people to be aware that sleep deprivation in adolescents is a real problem which affects their functioning, their wellbeing and even their academic performance.

“We want to work with schools, with parents, pupils, teachers, head teachers, support staff, local education authorities and civil servants to run a number of studies to find out what the ideal starting time is, and how schools can manage this.”

The sleep study will focus on GCSE students from years 10 and 11 and the researchers are recruiting secondary schools across the UK to take part in the study.

Before You Go

Baby Sleep Tricks

The Guide Book(01 of04)

The Gentle Sleep Solution: The Naturally Nurturing Way To Help Your Baby To Sleep offers a gentle alternative to controlled crying methods. Drawing on her experience as a psychologist, CBT therapist and mother of four, Shallow teaches parents, firstly, how to identify the underlying reason for their baby's troubled sleeping by reading their behaviour, and, secondly, how to respond in ways that will help to reduce their anxiety and allow them to fall asleep independently. (credit:Jupiterimages via Getty Images)

The Bedtime Story Book(02 of04)

Swedish behavioural psychologist and linguist Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin spent more than three years perfecting his bestselling sleep-inducing bedtime story The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep. Using psychological and positive reinforcement techniques to help little ones to relax, focus and eventually drift off, he describes the story as “the verbal equivalent of rocking a baby to sleep.” (credit:Penguin Random House)

The Smartphone App(03 of04)

The Sound Sleeper app, gives you a choice of sounds for lulling your baby to sleep according to her personal preferences – whether that’s the rhythm of the womb, a gentle ‘shhh’ or the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It also ‘listens’ for your baby and starts playing the sound you’ve chosen as soon as it hears a whimper. You can even track your baby’s sleep and generate graphs to help you learn and analyse your baby’s sleep patterns. (credit:Layland Masuda via Getty Images)

The Night Light(04 of04)

The Sleepy Baby™ Biological LED Lamp light bulb works by filtering out the stimulating blue light spectrum that can inhibit your baby’s production of the sleep hormone, melatonin. Although it provides adequate light for bedtime stories, nappy changes and night-time feeds, your baby’s brain registers the light as darkness, making it easier for them to fall back asleep. (credit:Lighting Science)