How long for lunchtime in primary?

[jacsgirl]

How long do your children get for lunch? I teach year 2 and they have cut lunch from 1hr to 35 mins.

An hour, split roughly between 30 minutes in the lunch hall and 30 minutes on the playground. we have 2 lunch sittings

An hour including eating and playing. 35 minutes sounds more like secondary.

New headmistress Ellen. It means we now have a 2 hour 40 mins afternoon. Very long in my opinion.

I'm surprised you can get all the children through the dining room in 35 mins -is it a small school?

Does this include reception and KS1? Horrendous.

@crocsaretoocoolforschool

Yeah about 200 children. They split lunch between key stages.

@Ellen

Yes- I teach yr 2.

My primary school DS has 45 minutes for lunch.
The secondary school that I work is the only secondary school in the city that still has an hour for lunch.

That’s really short. I’ve never known primary to be less than an hour. 2 hours and 40 mins is a very long afternoon, I would need to put a movement break in there. What’s the reasoning behind the change?

@Teaandbiscuits35

Yes- I am going to see how they get on in the next week and then possibly add a break.

Too be honest I'm not sure the reasoning.

It is not just the children. I dont think it is good for the staff either.

An hour and 15 mins in key stage 1

Is it financial? Saving money on lunchtime supervision? KS1 used to get a break even with a 2 1/4 hour afternoon. But the teacher has to supervise that.

You can bank on it. They have cut mid day supervisors.

Ah. That'll be a hard one to argue against.

1hr 15 minutes here, and I've known some KS1 pupils take 30 minutes to eat their lunch. When do the kids get time to actually just play?

bushtailadventures

Depends how fast they eat I suppose. Realistically just Morning break.

1 hours for KS1 ,45 mins for KS 2. KS1 get a 15 minute afternoon play as well.

50 minutes - primary.

Both Key Stages (and EYFS) get an afternoon play as well.

A shorter lunch doesn’t mean more teaching hours though, does it? Wouldn’t it just mean an earlier finish?

Lunch starts from 12 at DC's school and finishes at 1:15. The youngest children queue first, then when there's space (small school), the next class can go and so on. Everyone gets at least 1 hr.

My Ds has just moved up to high school . He previously had an hour . Now has 45 minutes and has said he has no time to eat and talk or run around

That sounds ridiculous I'd be going in to complain about that very strongly if it happened to my Y2 DC.

Out of interest and not to derail when do the teachers get to eat their lunch and have a break if there's only 35 minutes for lunch? DC's teachers supervise eating at lunch time and I assume have a break when the kids are running around outside.

My ds has a one hour lunch. The school I work in has 50 mins. I think 35 mins is too short.