In Denmark, schools are trialling later start times to give teens a sleep boost

euronews (in English)

Amid a growing awareness of youth mental health, 20 schools in Denmark have pushed back their start times following a two-year trial.

Transcript

00:00Remember the struggle of waking up for school before the sun rises?

00:03This school began letting pupils aged 13 to 16 start at 9 a.m. instead of 8-10 a.m. two years ago,

00:10hoping to improve students' learning and well-being.

00:13It all started with me reading Chris McDonald's book, Ægget til forhandling,

00:19where I read about young people's positive relationship to sleep.

00:25And then I thought, hmm, in schools in Denmark we always meet at 8 a.m., why do we do that?

00:31The experiment was driven by experts' opinions,

00:34suggesting teenagers have a different circadian rhythm than adults.

00:38Before, we were very tired of it, and we were also quite angry in the morning,

00:46because many people were sleeping, and we didn't really care about each other.

00:51But after we met at 9 a.m., we became much happier,

00:55and we really wanted to talk to each other instead of looking at our phones.

00:59They prefer to go to bed later and to wake up later.

01:03So if you ask a teenage daughter at 10 a.m. to go to bed,

01:06and she says, I'm not sleepy yet, then she's actually not lying.

01:11According to the Danish health authorities, teenagers should sleep 8 to 10 hours a day,

01:16but almost 60% of 15-year-olds in the country sleep less than that.

01:21You're lying there turning and turning for a long time, maybe an hour or two,

01:26and you can't fall asleep.

01:27But after an hour or two, you get better sleep quality, and you fall asleep faster.

01:33In collaboration with a tech startup,

01:35the school has tracked their pupils' sleep and screen time via an app.

01:39Results showed improvement in sleep duration and tiredness levels.

01:44The initiative has spread rapidly throughout the country in the past two years.

01:48Today, there are about 20 schools that have implemented a later school start time.

01:53The thrives of the children are very good,

01:56and the energy in the class for the first lesson now is much better than it was before.

02:02And there's a lot more initiative by the students.

02:06I really like the new school start because you can sleep in longer,

02:11and I'm now more concentrated in school, and I can learn more.

02:14We go later to bed, so it's not really working for me.

02:19It works for me.

02:21I think it's really nice when I have late football trainings, football sessions,

02:29then I can get an hour more sleep, especially when I live far away.

02:35But does the later school start time mean later finish times?

02:38Advocates say schools need to make sure students have free time in the afternoon.

02:43We actually see that many schools, they make this happen.

02:46They find the hours, they mess around a little bit with the schedule,

02:51and it really can happen.

02:54Experts say the initiative is promising, but warn that there are some caveats.

02:58My concern is that a lot happened to the technological development and social media and stuff,

03:05and we actually don't know whether the effects will last for a longer period of time.

03:13Evaluating the effects of this initiative can also be tricky.

03:17In Denmark, many of the schools that have implemented the initiative

03:23have not had a scientific or methodological scientific evaluation of the initiatives.

03:30So that is something we also need.

03:32About seven municipalities in Denmark have active ongoing discussions

03:36about support for schools to try a later start time.

03:39But there remains a back and forth between implementing changes

03:43based on existing scientific evidence

03:45and supporting experiments that could yield new insights.

Category

Transcript

Recommended