Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits for teenagers at school of staggering the start-time of the school day.

The Changing of School Session Times (England) Regulations (1999), which prescribed the procedures maintained schools had to follow when changing the school day, were revoked in September 2011: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/1954/made.

The governing bodies of all maintained schools in England now have the freedom to revise the length of the school day as they see fit.

All schools have the autonomy to make decisions about the content, structure and duration of their school day, including the flexibility to decide when their school day should start and finish. We trust head teachers to decide how best to structure their school day to support their pupils’ education.

There are no specific legal requirements about how long the school day should be. Governing bodies of maintained schools are responsible for deciding when morning and afternoon sessions should begin and end on each school day.