Guy Holloway, the headmaster at Hampton Court House, lets us in on the secrets of student sleep...
Sleep is the greatest cognitive enhancer we have; it is the fuel that makes us efficient. Lack of sleep leads to poor decision-making, irritability, strained human relationships, stress, suppressed immunity, depression and a whole host of other issues which make life profoundly difficult. Clearly sleep education is a priority for us all.
As every parent and teacher knows, primary school children have irrepressible energy and bounce off the walls with enthusiasm for life. But, all too often, teenagers are pale, grouchy and prone to making poor, and sometimes dangerous, decisions.
Why do teenagers feel so wide-awake during unsociable hours and then so often struggle to get up in the mornings? We now understand the biological basis for this; the teenage body clock has a phase delay which means that, at its peak (around the age of 19 or 20), teenagers feel sleepy up to three hours later than the rest of us. As a leading neuroscientist, Professor Russell Foster, puts it, ‘teenagers are essentially living in another time zone. So having teenagers get up for school at 7 am is like asking adults to wake at 4 am. ’
Teenagers are not lazy! The ones I meet are motivated, hard-working and want to contribute positively to society. However, they have to operate too often within a system which requires their presence at school by 8.30am (or earlier). And in getting up ‘early’ they are overriding nature by breaking their natural sleep cycle and ignoring their circadian rhythms resulting in a loss of two to three hours sleep each night.
By the time Thursday or Friday arrives the evidence is that many teens are underslept by 12-14 hours. That matters. It makes it harder to concentrate and harder to learn. Out of the classroom, tiredness impacts on teenagers’ decision-making regarding alcohol, coffee, drugs, sex, driving and much else besides.
In September, Hampton Court House opened its new Sixth Form, with A level tuition beginning at 1.30pm and finishing at 7 pm. Our students have the same amount of tuition as those working at more traditional times but we believe our students are working during their hours of optimal cognition. The results have been startling.
Our A level students do not lie in bed all day; they are aiming for Oxbridge and other leading universities, and they work late into the night and begin again late in the morning. The difference is that they all get the recommended eight to nine hours’ quality sleep a night.
In the context of my particular school, the 1.30pm start works brilliantly. We find that our students tend to be in school of their own accord by 10.30am or 11 am, and they choose to work quietly in the library, whilst others may choose to swim or use the gym. I accept that for many schools a 1.30pm may be impractical. I do believe however that all schools and sixth form colleges could introduce a 10 am or 11 am start, and see huge benefits. There are indeed a handful of schools which are now doing this.
Our teachers have noticed how more effectively (and happily) students learn later in the day, and also how productive those hours are from 4 pm to 7 pm, where there seems to be a particular focus and concentration in the classroom. Yes, the later start has impacted on teachers’ timetables, but we have found that conversations with individual teachers mean that they are happy to offset one late evening a week against a much later start on another day.
Parents have commented on how their teens are happier at home – and even how they contribute readily to household chores and all those activities which are so necessary for harmonious family life. There have been other unforeseen benefits; one of our 17-year olds recently told me, “I used never to get a chance to eat breakfast in the morning but this term I haven’t skipped breakfast once.” Our sixth-formers also enjoy stress-free travel to and from school at off-peak times.
In recent months I have been contacted by schools across the world; there is much interest in our initiative, as many headteachers acknowledge (if only in private sometimes) that there is a growing need to address the current practice of school start times which do not adjust to take account of the well-documented change in the adolescent body clock.
In the short term, I expect to see more smaller schools and colleges, which are arguably more agile than their larger counterparts, introduce a later start.
That said, Hampton Court House has attracted at least one ‘traditionalist’. Tristram Jones-Parry, the former Head Master of Westminster School, is our Head of Sixth Form; he oversees with his legendary rigour the academic programme.
We are confident that, in combining the best of traditional practice with the findings from evidence-based research, we will see improved outcomes in physical and mental health, as well as in those all-important examination results.
Guy Holloway is headmaster at Hampton Court House Independent School
