The idea of starting the school day much later has been around for centuries, the 1660's to be exact when it was put forward by John Aubrey. He wrote that children should "sleep their full sleep, no scholar should rise too early, especially in winter".
This idea is to be tried by head teacher Guy Holloway at Hampton Court House school from September where a 1:30pm - 7:30pm day will be introduced for all students 16 and over. The younger pupils will start at 9am as usual.
Apparently research by neuroscientists shows that teenagers perform better if they are allowed to wake up according to their body clocks.
As has been said, it will be interesting to see the result of this experiment, including how they perform in the real world when they will have to get up early to go to work!