> GB should switch to UTC+0 all year. UTC+1 all year was tried (1968-1971) and was very unpopular in Scotland. School hours are roughly 09:00 till 15:00 and they only get about 6 hours of sunlight in winter up north so local noon has to be at around 12:00.
Couldn't you adjust the school schedule by an hour to achieve the same effect?
You mean switch to UTC+1 all year while doing +1 on the timetables of all schools and anything else that might directly or indirectly depend on them: childcare for younger children, working hours of teachers and parents, sports activities, public transport, ...? Compared to switching to UTC+0 all year and leaving the timetables as they are, the disadvantages would seem to greatly outweigh the advantages.
The other confusing thing about this discussion is that when you include timetable changes there are quite a lot of options and it's not always obvious which alternative people are comparing an option against. To be honest, the current system with clock changes isn't the worst possible option. Perhaps it's the second best.
Sure, my point is just that all of those schedules are arbitrary. We made them all up.
One way might require less rescheduling, and that's valid, but these discussions out in the world tend to go to "but everyone does X at Y time and it will be dark out!" as though this isn't all made up and changeable.
I also think that learnings from previous attempts decades ago may not apply as strongly today. In the US at least I think people's schedules tend to be much less fixed on the rigid 8am/9am to 5pm in-office schedule than they were 10 or 20 years ago. The number of people out driving at all hours of the day all week speaks to that.
The world used to revolve around everyone being in-office next to their phone during defined expected business hours. Today my mortgage broker is texting me from a coffee shop.
Maybe you could use different timetables in summer and winter, so that only the relevant part of activities is affected, not everything indiscriminately. This would also make it possible to cater to local needs much better instead of simply fixing school hours from 9 to 15 and adjusting the clock that it falls into daylight.
Then local businesses would have to shift their hours to support parents with kids. And before you know it, you’ve effectively shifted everyone’s clock anyway.
Couldn't you adjust the school schedule by an hour to achieve the same effect?