On Oct 21, 9:51*pm, Dawlish wrote:
On Oct 20, 7:52*pm, "Anne Burgess"
wrote:

Wouldn't it be difficult to time the school day so that its
start/end
wouldn't coincide with the start/end of the office day?

When I stayed in Germany, some schools started at 08.00 and some
even earlier. I was staying with a family of seven and all the
children's schools started well before shops and offices did.
Then they all came home early enough to get some daylight after
school, long before the evening rush hour.

Anne B

When I lived in La Republica Dominicana, my school started at 7.15 and
finished at 1.30. mainly because it was physically impossible to teach
in classrooms that were 90F by 12.30!pm All you could do was lecture
from a sitting position, or even better, get the kids to do the work
themselves. I never found the early start a worry and neither did the
students. I'd see nothing wrong with starting school at 7.00/7.30 am
in the UK in the summer. Only social and work mores prevents us from
doing that. Why have the same start and finish times in the winter, as
in the summer? Yet almost every single school does.

I suppose the main reason is that a 7am start would mean the kids
having to get up at some hideous, pre-6am hour if there was a
significant commute to school (e.g. when I was at school, registration
was 8.45am and I needed to get up at 7am.... quite early enough for me
lol!)

Nick