HS to Start School Day at 9am
“The evidence is clear,” states Mary Newman, Head of School at The Sharon Academy. “Starting the school day later makes a big difference to high school students.” For years, educators have known that starting the school day later helps teenage students’ sleep patterns, mental health, and academic achievement. Explains Newman, “There is only so long we can talk about the benefits without putting them into practice. I am extremely excited to be able to incorporate the research data into the way school works for students at The Sharon Academy, starting this fall.”
The change in the start time of the school day is part of a much larger and more consequential plan for The Sharon Academy to focus on “Deeper Learning,” a way of structuring the day and curricula to allow students to take deep dives into topics while reducing the interference of course overload. Deeper Learning refers to a way of organizing time and teaching classes that uses what we know about learning and brain function. Neuroscience tells us that the more disparate things students are juggling (5 different subjects, for example), the more “interference” they must manage in order to learn. In our work with Dartmouth Professor of Neuroscience Chris Jernstedt, we learned that “we can only think about one thing at a time well.” By focusing on a few academic subjects at a time, students are better able to consolidate their learning. In other words, their learning ‘sticks’ for the long term.
Many aspects of TSA’s curriculum will continue unchanged. All second semester Juniors and first semester Seniors will continue to receive weekly Career and College guidance as a part of their Seminar curriculum. And TSA’s popular electives program, with choices like kayaking, sugaring, chess, stringed instruments, photography, and drama (to name just a few) will also continue.
“When I tell prospective high school students about the change to a 9:00 a.m. start,” says Amber Wylie, Director of Enrollment, “Their mouths literally drop open and their eyes open wide. It’s as if I have just unexpectedly offered them a handful of chocolate.” A later start, a scientifically proven learning environment, and more choices: What’s not to love about these changes?