Later school start times benefit Canadian students - report

Wednesday 5th September 2012

As children develop into their teenage years and adulthood, the hormonal changes known as puberty strikes them, which can result in negative impacts on sleep quality.

Professor Reut Gruber of the McGill University in Montreal (also chair of the Canadian Sleep Society's paediatric sleep group) suggests that sleeping problems arise when a person is undergoing puberty due to the later production of the sleep inducing hormone; melatonin. This leads to later sleeping times which are not beneficial, as they lead to later waking times. As a result snoozing through the alarm and skipping morning lessons can become something of a temptation. Overall though, no matter how late you sleep and wake up, school timings usually remain unchanged.

Professor Gruber suggests that on average teens require approximately nine hours of sleep per night to prevent them from becoming chronically sleep deprived. This aims to enable them increase their academic awareness and focus by avoiding the energy-sapped state that results from poor sleep. As a result of this, some schools in Canada have agreed to later school start times, such as 10am instead of 8.45am to improve their pupil’s physical and mental energy, and in turn their academic performance.

The schools that have introduced the later start times have reported improvements in areas such as attendance, punctuality, behaviour and sociability – all factors that appeared to suffer under early start times. 

Tags: school time sleep teenagers

Category: Sleep Research

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