Secondary school start times (boys)

[MonsoonSeason1]

Can anyone who has kids in independent schools in London (ideally North or central) help me out with what the start times of school are in secondary. Ie what the latest time a child could arrive at school in the morning is. I’m curious…

I’d be particularly interested in Westminster, Highgate, UCS, King Alfred’s, Mill Hill, Merchant Taylor’s, City, Northbridge House, Wetherby.

Grateful for any help! Thank you.

It varies, maybe as early as 8:20 and as late as 8:45?

Yes. I was wondering about those variations….

What exactly are you trying to ascertain? How early they need to leave home?

School websites will usually have that info on them somewhere.

Depend on morning clubs options.

Are you going to choose a school based on what time they start? Because if you are that's an interesting criteria so I'd love to know why!!

Well the OP's commute aside, it's well-known that the teenage brain would benefit from a later start to the school day. Apparently even a 30 minute later start time of 9am would deliver huge benefits. Given the evidence it actually seems slightly bonkers secondary kids are forced into such early starts!

My trio had 0600 am sports; one in hockey one in ice skating and one on a swim team. Add to that my shift work and 20 minutes one way or another was vip.

@ALongProcess has hit the nail on the head. I’m a great believer in the benefits of sleep especially for the teenage brain. So ideally I’d love to work backwards from the commute time and give DS the best chance at a lie in! Of course that would take its place amongst other factors, but it’s quite an important one for me. I’ve looked on a lot of websites and it’s not really information they volunteer. I could call admissions and ask, but I was hoping someone here might be able to help me out first!

I’m assuming no morning clubs here. Of course if they join a recorder ensemble that has an 7am start we’d have to make that work, but ideally I’d like that to be their call rather than the baseline of the school IYSWIM

Try searching the school name followed by school day, that seems to work for most of them to get the timings. They probably stick it in some sub menu that’s not easy to spot by browsing.

OP is spot-on about the benefits for teenagers, who become night owls at that age. I believe UCS and City start times are about 20 mins later than Highgate's (08:25).

How do you know you are going to get a sleeping teenager?
Mine (nearly 15) is usually up by 7. Definitely on a weekend, when he can be found cooking breakfast at that time. Later school starts would just give him more screen time before school.

Both mine have before school clubs for choirs, sports etc. Rowing is the big one for early starts...

Some teenagers may be different but the research is pretty solid that, on average, teenagers' sleeping patterns change and their cognitive abilities are impaired in the morning. It is just that moving secondary school hours is hard, as it would interfere with the standard business hours of adults.

@DaffodilCharm thank you I’ll give that a try
@JoeDoe that’s extremely helpful thank you!
@SnowsFalling I’ve got a hunch, based on the fact that my husband and I and my daughter are all night owls. I’d LOVE to have a teen who springs out of bed in the morning. That would be dreamy
@itsanewera ooh I remember the early rowing from uni. Ouch.

Didn't Hampton Court House introduce flexible/late starts for their 6th form a few years ago? Maybe have a look there?

Ours is 8:20 unless in the gym before which I think is a quite standard time.

All my kids have started at 8.40 , however they all have tutor group till 9.10 . Therefore actually learning doesn’t start to 9.10 . I would try and establish when the learning day begins rather than the official start time

I suspect a 2 minute difference is neither here not there anyway as far as teen brain kick in.

I think Northbridge (Senior Hampstead) does a late start one day a week. Check out their website.