For better exam results ... stay in bed

The results of a recent experiment showed that students who were allowed to stay in bed for an extra hour in the morning did better in their exams.

In the experiment trialled at Monkseaton school, a Tyneside comprehensive, three scientists have shown that the sleeping pattern of adolescents means that they work better later in the morning.

Hardly surprising really though. Ask any student if they would rather start lessons at 10am than 9am and I guarantee they will say yes.

You’ve all seen the cereal advert where a sleepy teenager can’t even manage to pour the milk into his bowl because he has had to get up so ridiculously early for school. (Of course, when he eats the amazingly fantastic cereal in the advert he will be wide awake.)

It’s not really the teens that we should be concerned with though, I don’t think. What about university students? Ever seen one of those get up early? The number of uni students who made a 9am lecture during their undergraduate degree must be very small.

Not least because students go to bed later. Whether that be due to the house party of the year or pulling an all-nighter before an essay deadline.

You don’t need to be a scientist to work out that if students go to bed late then they aren’t going to (want to) get up early. Plus, of course, they won’t be able to function fully until later the next day.

The research suggests that adolescent students are not able to work properly until two to four hours later than adults. Or perhaps us adults just have the sense and experience to know that if you’re going to be alert in the morning you can’t stay up ridiculously late.

What I want to know is, if schools adopt this idea of starting at 10am, how are the next generation ever going to be persuaded to start work at 9 when they get a job?

All said, I was hoping I might have a case for suggesting that my upcoming law exam be pushed back into the afternoon but unfortuanately the study says that the adolescent “time shift” persists only until the age of 21, after which we are able to get up as early as we did when we were young children. I don’t agree, I’d take the opportunity for a lie-in any day.