Time for Bed?

Recently, my son has started getting up earlier and I am wondering whether it's time to let him go to bed later?

I have checked out the NHS website, which has a list of hours children need of sleep at each age, they say that a 6 year old only really needs about 10.75 hours sleep a night. I think that sounds about right.

But are we a nation of put to bed early parents? The people across the road from us who have a 5 year old and a 9 year old and they don't put their children to bed until about 1.30 in the morning. We've gone to bed at 11.30-12 before and they are still up playing, is this normal?

I really believe that sleep is important so have always made sure that they get to bed at a decent time (between 7.30 and 8.00pm), especially on a school night, nothing worse than having to drag a child out of bed still half asleep!

I know when we've been to France it is quite common for children to still be up late, is it just a British thing to put children to bed early?

I think we'll let my son go to bed a bit later for a few nights and see whether he stays in bed till later although i'm sure he's just going to be up as early and then won't have had as much sleep. I can't imagine anything worse than a child falling asleep in class or being so tired they can't function at school.