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Trying to drag a teenager out of bed in the morning and get them into school on time is a battle most parents would love to avoid – and they may soon be able to! The concept of delaying classes until the afternoon, to allow older pupils to get a lie-in, is being trialled in a number of English schools.
9:00 in the morning and Cassie is still in bed. Most schools have already started for the day, but Cassie’s school now starts later, much later. It runs from 1:30 in the afternoon till 7 in the evening.
Morning, Mom.
Waking up later and getting more sleep has had a dramatic impact on life at home.
I used to get really annoyed with my mom trying to wake me up. I’m sorry! But now she doesn’t really have to. I can just do it on my own.
I don’t see her, you know, looking tired and, you know, even if you’re older, you feel tired and you’re likely, you know, stroppy to someone, but she’s much better.
They’ve changed the start time at Cassie’s School – not because they think their sixth-formers are lazy – – the decision’s based on more than 20 years of research into the teenage body clock.
The cards really are stacked against them because they are overriding nature by getting up “early” in the morning in order to be at … on time for school.
Overriding nature? What is the science here? We asked the students to explain it.
Our body clock is located in the brain in the hypothalamus and, specifically, in the suprachiasmatic nuclei. These cells are responsible for all our 24-hour timing systems in the human body.
In adolescence, as the brain continues to grow and develop, the body clock shifts to two to three hours later.
A 7:00 start time for a teenager is equivalent to a 4:30 wake up time for an adult.
I definitely think I’m less of a classic teenager. In the mornings, I’ve been a lot more cooperative and a lot nicer, … … and I’ll often be helping out and I’ll actually be doing chores out of a want rather than a requirement.
In my old school timetable, I felt kind of grumpy in the morning, but then it would wear out. But now, it’s just I’m feeling good all around ‘cause I got good sleep and good quality of sleep.
I find it easier to concentrate in lessons. Whereas before I’d sometimes be falling asleep over the first few hours of the morning, … … here it’s so much more easy to concentrate and just to focus on the work that I have to do.
Schools on a day-to-day basis are dealing with a whole range of issues, sometimes mental health issues. I would argue there’s a public health issue really in terms of a nation of teenagers, … … particularly older teenagers, that are going to school chronically sleep-deprived.
It’s too early to say if the changes here will mean students do better in their exams, … … but it’s hoped a wider study by Oxford University will help other schools to decide whether to change their timetable.
Graeme Sancho, BBC News.
End
In this text, there are various examples of past habits using used to, would, and the past simple. When we talk about things in the past that are no longer true, we can do it various ways.
Used to + infinitive
We can use used to + infinitive to talk about past states, habits, and repeated actions that don’t happen anymore:
‘I used to play football every Saturday.’ ‘There didn’t use to be a restaurant there, did there?’ ‘She used to love drawing when she was a kid!’ ‘Did you use to listen to rock music as a teenager?’
*Be careful of spelling changes: affirmative = ‘used to’; negative = ‘didn’t use to’; question = ‘did you use to?’
Would + infinitive
We can use would (‘d) + infinitive to talk about repeated past actions that don’t happen anymore; we don’t use would for past ‘states’. Would is slightly more formal than used to and is often used in stories. We don’t normally use the negative or question form of would for past habits (‘Would you often go to the beach?’)
‘Every winter, we would go skiing as a family.’ ‘She would always buy too much chocolate on holiday!’ ‘My mum would sing to us at bedtime when we were younger.’
Past simple
We can also use the past simple to talk about past states or habits. The key difference is that the past simple doesn’t as clearly emphasise the repeated or continuous element of the past action or situation. Additionally, the past simple doesn’t make it as clear as used to or would that the action or state is now not true:
‘We played tennis every time we went there.’ ‘I always ate pizza on a Saturday night as a child.’
*If something happened only once, we need to use the past simple:
‘I visited my grandma in Chile last summer.’ ‘I used to/ would visit my grandma in Chile last summer.’
Examples in the text
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