a pioneering headteacher is calling for all secondary schools to follow his lead and start classes at 11am, allowing teenagers two hours extra in bed.
dr paul kelley, head of monkseaton community high school in north tyneside, said it would mean the end of "teenage zombies" dozing off in lessons before lunch, after experiments showed teenagers could have different body clocks from adults and younger children.
russell foster, an oxford professor of neuroscience, tested the memory of 200 monkseaton pupils at 9am and 2pm using pairs of words, and discovered a 9% improvement in the afternoon. students correctly identified 51% of word pairs in the later session, compared with 42% in the morning. tayler mccullough, 15, one of the test subjects, said the majority of students would welcome the extra hours in bed. "i'm extremely hard to get up in the morning. one or two people like to get to school early, but most of us would be up for going in later. i'm sure it would make a big difference to our learning ability."
kelley is adamant a change of school timetable will have a significant impact on exam performance. he said: "teenagers aren't lazy. we're depriving them of the sleep they need through purely biological factors beyond their control. this has a negative impact on their learning, and possibly on their mental and physical health. we've just learnt of this, but it is vital that we act on it.
"the research carried out by professor foster showed that, from the age of 10, our internal body clocks shift, so it's good for young people to stay in bed. they peak at 20 then gradually go back again, but body clocks do not reach the pre-teenage level until around 55 years old. the 'time shift' is two hours on average, so teenagers should get up two hours later. we are making teenagers ratty by making them get up early."
he wants his school's governors to approve his plan and put the new timetable in place before the opening of monkseaton's new £20m school building, the most technologically advanced in the country, in september.
kelley has a history of groundbreaking teaching methods. in january, he carried out a trial at monkseaton high that found pupils scored up to 90% in a gcse science paper after one session involving three 20-minute bursts interspersed with 10-minute breaks for physical activity. the 48 year-nine pupils had not covered any part of the gcse science syllabus before the lessons. in 1998, kelley established a scheme with the open university bridging the divide between school and university by allowing sixth formers to study undergraduate modules alongside their a-levels.
kelley hopes his latest idea will be just as successful. "we have to be pragmatic. but this proves that, by starting later, children's learning improves, as does their health."
foster said: "this is preliminary data, but what's exciting is that it matches more detailed studies carried out in canada and the us. teenagers get up late not because they are lazy but because they are biologically programmed to do so."
原文链接：
一位开明的校长中学校长要求所有的中学与他一起在上午推迟两小时上课，给学生更多的睡眠时间。
英国北泰恩河曼卡斯顿社区高中的校长保罗•凯利博士认为，这一措施能够结束学生午餐前昏昏沉沉打瞌睡的现状，并且研究显示，十几岁的青少年与成人和儿童有着不同的生物钟。
牛津大学神经科学教授罗素•福斯特为此作了一个关于记忆力的小实验。他以曼卡斯顿200名学生为对象，在上午九点和下午两点分别用单词配对的测试方式检验他们的记忆力情况，并发现相对于上午42%的正确率，下午（51%）学生们的记忆力表现有9%的提高。15岁的泰勒•麦卡鲁克也参加了这一测试，他说大部分学生都支持上午多睡两小时，“早上实在是很不想起床。可能有那么一两个人喜欢早点去学校，但是大部分人都是愿意晚点。我相信这一改变能够大大提高我们的学习能力。”
凯利坚信上课时间的改变能够对学生的考试表现有重大的影响。他说：“学生们并不懒惰。我们剥夺了他们的睡觉时间，而因此带来的困倦是自然的生理反应，不是他们可以控制的。这对他们的学习有消极作用，并且可能影响到他们的精神和肉体健康。我们需要对此有所了解，并且更重要的是对此采取具体实施。”
“福斯特教授的实验表明，从10岁开始，我们体内的生物钟开始发生改变，因此让年轻人多睡点觉是有好处的。这种改变在20岁的时候到达顶峰并且慢慢回落，但是生物钟直到55岁左右才会慢慢回落到十几岁之前的状态。这种生物钟的改变平均是2个小时，所以青少年应该多睡两个小时再起床。过去我们让他们起床太早，这使得他们被弄得狼狈不堪。”
凯利希望学校的董事能够批准他的计划，并且在曼卡斯顿中学价值2000万英镑的科技先进的新教学大楼剪彩之前的九月实施这个改动过的课程表。
过去凯利曾经尝试过开创性的教学方法。在一月份，他在曼卡斯顿中学进行了一个小实验，即在一学期的教学中，每二十分钟为一个单位，三个二十分钟的学习中突然要求学生进行十分钟的体能活动，实验结束后，学生们在gcse（英国普通初级中学毕业文凭）考试中科学成绩上升至90%。其中48名九年级学生在该课程前并未接触过任何gcse科学课程提纲。在1998年，凯利还设立过一个方案，即与开放大学联合起来，允许六年级学生在修读他们的第六级a-level课程的同时修读大学课程。
凯利希望他的想法能够实现。“我们确实需要务实，但改革后的结果表明，孩子们的学习能力得到了提高，身体也更健康了”
福斯特说：“这是初步的数据，但令人兴奋的是这与在加拿大和美国执行的试验的结果相符合。青少年起床晚并不是因为他们懒，而是他们生理结构使然”。