The school where lessons start at 1.30pm

I voted 9am. I had uni at 1pm and I remmeber it meant you couldn't do a huge amount. (ie, you couldn't do something like go home) because you only had a few hours to hang around and wait. 7am is a bit too early imo.

I don't like this idea of starting at 1.30pm and finishing at 7pm. It's sometimes too dark to walk home at 7pm.

Lessons start at 11.50 today for me and I'm not complaining.
Free after lunch too

The joys of being an A2 student

Saw an interesting story in Metro today which tells of a headmaster "who has told his sixth formers not to come in for lessons until after lunch."

Guy Holloway, the head of Hampton Court House school; has introduced a timetable where sixth-formers start at 1.30pm and finish at 7pm.

The idea is based on research which shows teenagers need a lie-in. According to the study, a 7am start for a teenager is equivalent to a 4.30am start for an adult.

Holloway says that getting teenagers into school in the morning is 'overriding nature', while the school's website suggests that the late start means students can use the morning to do their homework.

What do you think of this idea? Would it work at your school?

I voted 7am.

Children's lives should revolve around education for weekdays.

What their parents encourage them to do on weekends (and after school on weekdays) is variable (and often very little), so mandatory education should be used as much as possible to make up for bad parenting, imo.

I agree with 'childrens lives should revolve around education.'

But it's not exactly 'bad parenting' if children aren't doing extra curricular activities after school/weekends, which is what I assume you were suggesting. Correct me if I read that wrong.

I'm suggesting that the emphasis children place on education outside of school (and to a lesser extent inside of school), is derived largely from the values their parents instil in them.

Contrasting the work-ethic of British children and Chinese children, for example, attests to that. Most parents in the UK do not do much, in my experience, to encourage their children to work outside of school, and as the government has limited control over bad parents (in this sense), the best alternative is to make the most of the time that children spend at school.