A new investigation into the school timetables of Spanish students once again calls into question the continuous day before the game, an aspect that the OECD already criticized for Spain two months ago.
According to the work that is about to be published by the sociologist of the University of Valencia, Daniel Gabaldón, children who concentrate their school hours only in the mornings get up very early, rest little, eat poorly, do more homework and spend more time on screens than those who have a split day. As advantages, they play more sports and see more of their friends. According to the sociologist’s opinion, the debate on school timetables must be rethought, thinking exclusively about the student and not about issues such as parents’ family reconciliation or teachers’ working conditions.
Galbaldón’s Proyecto Time research, carried out with researcher Kadri Táht from the University of Tallinn, is based on data from the two published editions of the INE Time Use Survey from 2002 and 2008 (in ages between 10 and 18).
In Spain, most secondary school students follow the intensive day, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., cramming all the classes into the morning hours and leaving the afternoons free. Some primary schools have also adopted this schedule (in Catalonia it is exceptional, only 25 schools do it).
Those who work continuous hours get up earlier to go to school, but they also go to bed later than those who work part-time, and although some take a nap (10%), they do not manage to recover all rest hours They lose about 42 minutes every day.
Gabaldón explains that in Spain people wake up too early compared to other countries because they keep the Central European time, something that does not correspond to them in terms of geographical situation. This causes the internal clock to become desynchronized with sunlight. “A child in primary or nursery school goes to school at 9 a.m., which is actually 8 a.m. in the fall and 7 a.m. in the summer. Teenagers come in at 8 a.m., which is 7 a.m. in the fall and 6 a.m. in the summer.”
how much do they sleep Few, according to the survey, and even less those who do intensive work. On average, they sleep 9.12 hours in primary school and 8.23 ??hours in secondary school (on a continuous schedule). Although it seems to fall within the minimum recommended by pediatricians (from 9 to 12 hours in primary school and 8 to 10 hours in secondary school), it is inferred that part of the child population sleeps more and a percentage of children rest below ‘these figures.
In primary school, the difference between a child who only goes to school in the mornings and another who goes there in the mornings and afternoons is 16 more minutes of rest in favor of the latter, and in secondary school, 19 minutes.
“Teenagers tend to be more owls than larks, so they tend to fall asleep later than when they were little. On the other hand, with this schedule, they are forced to get up early,” says the researcher.
On the contrary, other research indicates that all the time delayed in waking up in the morning is, practically, gain for sleep and does not extend during the night.
The sociologist warns that there is a risk that young people will establish, with these routines, a more evening chronotype (synchronization of circadian rhythms) in their adult lives.
The research includes eating habits. Those who go to the morning class have breakfast earlier (the peak is at 7.30 a.m. compared to 8.30 a.m. for the others), have lunch later (around 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. compared to the 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. slot), have lunch later and they have dinner at the same time (8pm to 10pm). For Gabaldón, these are unhealthy routines, especially lunch, as a delay in eating can affect the level of fat in the body and increases the risk of being overweight.
The use of screens, including television, also increases among children who have free afternoons, compared to those who do not. In primary school, the difference is 25 minutes each day (those in the compact school, in total, use mobile phones and television for 109 minutes). On the other hand, in secondary school, the difference between one and the other is half an hour (students who do intensive work use screens for 117 minutes).
Regarding homework, there is a difference of 20 minutes a day, in secondary school, perhaps to compensate for the lack of performance of the students in the last hours of the morning, says Gabaldón as a hypothesis.
Finally, students who have the afternoon off see their friends more (in primary school) and do between 12 and 13 more minutes of regular sport a day.
According to what this researcher considers, it is necessary to investigate more about the habits of schoolchildren in general and, especially, from a health point of view, to know the impact on the health of such intensive schedules, especially regarding overweight and obesity.
