Does increasing the time that students spend in school have an impact on student grades?

American Academy of Pediatrics says, “High schools and middle schools should begin the day no earlier than 8:30 am to help the teenagers get more sleep”. So to the question: Does increasing the time that students spend in school have an impact on student grades? The answer is always surprisingly controversial.

Well, I firmly believe that it is not a good idea to lengthen the standard school time to eight hours.

Firstly, it is believed that students are already put under a lot of pressure concerning their studies on a standard 6-5 hour school day. In fact, on longer days students may find a hard time to deal with all the duties that goes with schooling. Because in addition of getting well prepared for exams students also have to keep ahead of deadlines for assignments. So in this way we can imagine how difficult it is to get into extra-curricular activities such as sports or simply into other activities for teenagers (they’ll miss developing important social skills)

Secondly, with more hours, students may see school as a burden. In fact, if they cannot find enough energy to overcome their school responsibilities. For example in my case things are quite different, a normal school day can take 8 hours so I feel in some way in a good position to give my point of view about this subject. At the end of the day, I often feel exhausted and finding the strength to go over this tiredness is not always simple. That is why I think that extra school hours will lead to a lack of productivity and grades may fall.

On the other hand, Advocates of longer school days argue that these could benefit students. First, by spending more time in school, students will likely devote more time to learning. Second, they will spend less time alone at home or outside their home doing other activities that are not necessarily related to or beneficial for learning. In particular, if teachers cover more topics at school, the students will develop a deeper understanding of the topic and will find less difficulties to succeed. However, this depends on how qualified extra teachers are.

All thing considered, my opinion is still unchanged and it seems that lengthen the standard school day isn’t specially a good idea. In fact, questions about education system have to be solved simply because it is fundamental for our development; education is the best weapon to change the world said Nelson Mandela.

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