"Graham P Davis" wrote in message
...
Anne Burgess wrote:

We had (single) summer time all year round for a while in the
70s or
80s and as I recall, the inhabitants of the western Highlands
and
Hebrides moaned like hell about the risk to schoolchildren
going to
school in the dark.
Most of them these days are transported to school by bus.

Or car - over a distance so short that it would be as quick to walk it.
It's
been quite educational to be in a pub opposite a junior school in the
afternoon and watch the parents pick up the kids. You see them then
driving
themselves and the kids out from the side road near the school and out
onto
a dangerous bend, one hand on the wheel whilst the other clamps the phone
to
their ear.

LOL, you try *living* directly opposite a primary school!
My road is small & narrow and if I am ever off work and around at
school chucking-out time it's mayhem. The road gradually becomes
clogged with Chelsea tractors around 15 mins before their little
darlings are actually let out, then they're all jostling for position to
actually get out.
Sheer madness!
--
Col

Bolton, Lancashire
160m asl

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.

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

On Oct 21, 9:56*pm, Nick wrote:
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- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

A "hideous pre-6am hour" in summer would be to experience, often, a
fantastic, warm, brilliant, shining, wonderful early morning. Most
young kids would love it if they were allowed to get used to it. I'm
not sure their parents would though - hence the work and social mores
bit! We cause our kids to miss out on what is often the best part of
the day in summer y encouraging them to sleep. 9.30 to bed and
6.00/6.30 to rise for a 7.00/7.15 school start wouldn't do any under
11 any harm at all (after the age of 12-14, things get different and
secondary schools could do with starting later to fit with the best
learning times for an adolescent). They could then play to their
heart's content through the most of afternoon (instead of being in,
often, stiflingly hot clasrooms until 3.30) and into the evening. In
winter, of course, it is dark and no-one wants to get up at that time,
so let them sleep until 8.30/9.00 when it is light, for a 9.30/9.45
school (and office) start, with a 2.30/3.00 finish to the school day,
well before it gets dark again. We could still inflict the 5 hours per
day on them, but vary the infliction throughout the year as to when
there is more daylight, or less. Learning could take place in lots of
other contexts to facilitate them getting their hours in during winter
months. We even have the Internet and home access these days you know!

|
|"Nick" wrote in message
...
|On Oct 20, 5:36 am, "Darren Prescott"
|wrote:
| I'd opt for double summer time all year round if I could.
|
| I opt for proper time all year round - not changed my clocks in 5 years
and
| I don't see that changing any time soon.
|
| Fiddling with the clocks to make yourself think it's later than it really
is
| reeks of pointlessness to me.
|
|Then we should change the working day so it runs from 8am to 4pm (and
|pub closing times to 10pm, etc). The big problem with winter time
|(though I accept its need in Dec and Jan when the mornings are very
|dark) is that it's very out of kilter with people's waking and working
|lives. That's particularly the case immediately after the clocks go
|back, with daytime lasting around 6.45am to 4.45pm, badly out of sync
|with the working day.
|
|Nick
|

It could be worse. A few years ago I went to Australia and visited the
wonderfully beautiful and remote Kimberley area in the far north of Western
Australia. They are some way east of Perth, but all of WA keeps Perth time.
So, being in the tropics, the sun rises about 0530 and sets at about 1730
local time. The most unpleasantly hot part of the day is the bit they have
to work in, and evening activities take place in the dark.

What we did on our tour was left our watches on Northern Territory time, 90
minutes ahead. This meant we did things at sensible times of day by both
our watches and the sun. As for much of the time we were in the back of
beyond, what the "official" time was mostly didn't matter (some places near
the border "unofficially" run to NT time, anyway), and on the rare occasions
it did we just made the correction. This state of affairs continued until
we reached "civilisation" at Broome, which is also rather further west and
so the sun is more sensibly aligned with standard clock time.
--
- Yokel -

"Yokel" posts via a spam-trap account which is not read.