How much Science time in year 8?

[Viewofthehills]

DS, going into year 8 has just found out that one of his science lessons has been replaced with performing arts. This leaves three periods of science per week. Is this enough? Can anyone tell me how much time other schools spend on science?
He is quite cross. Loves Maths and Science. Appreciates the need to do everything else, but he is really not happy.

It's not just the number of lessons, but the number of hours. If a lesson is 2 hours then three periods is plenty.

What has probably happened is that it is a time table issue and there isn't a teacher available who can teach science.

Good point. He says a period is 50 minutes, so he has 2.5 hours of science a week. Is this enough in year ?

My Yr8 ds has a similar timetable for science. They have three lessons a week, and each one lasts for 50 or 55 minutes.

It is just one period less than they had last year- talking to a friend today it seems likely that since to yr 10 GCSE results were worse than expected, they have 'taken' one of the year 8 lessons to bump up the time given to the Yr 11's. The music/dance teacher who does performing arts is then the one with space in her timetable to accomodate an extra lesson.

Most kids are really thrilled about this apparently, just not DS.

ours get 3x 1hr per week in years 5-8 (middle school)