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Sleepwalking into exam season?

DUBAI - As the exam season sets in for Western schools, many students in Dubai will be sitting for their exams according to the schedule set in the UK or other education systems. As a result, they’re probably taking exams ‘later’ during the day – usually starting at 11.30am, in parallel with British students starting at 8.30am UK time.

Dubai-based students may be at a serious disadvantage in terms of their circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm is the natural human “body clock” – which is at an attention low just before lunch, and in the late afternoon.

These are precisely the times that Dubai-based students in British or European curriculum schools are sitting for their exams – unlike their peers back at home, with whom they are in direct competition for grades, whose exams are scheduled at concentration “peaks” (around 9am and 2.30pm).

Michael Drennan, Head of Psychology at Dubai British School, said: “It’s critical we give our students every chance to excel, and that means right down to the smallest advantage in concentration and focus. It’s because of this that we’ve advised all students taking study leave, and their parents, how to adjust the body clock for maximum performance in exams.”

Students in Western schools in the UAE should adjust their body clock as soon as they start study leave to suit the exam timetable – and to stick to that adjusted timetable through to the end of their exams.

Students should wake at around 10am, eat meals 2-3 hours later than usual, and go to bed after 1am. This surprising advice will run counter to the instincts of most parents – to insist their children get up early and start revising at school-times during study leave. But by encouraging this apparently responsible timekeeping, they will be pushing their children into a cycle where they are at their least awake (and have most impaired memory function) at the exact points in the day when they are in the exam room!

“You could have students almost falling asleep towards the end of their exams – what a waste of all the time and effort of studying and revision over many years if that happened,” adds Michael.

muaz@khaleejtimes.com