80 minute lessons

[badger14]

hello, my ds has just started secondary school, and each lesson is 80 minutes long with just two half hour breaks during the day. he is finding this exhausting, and loosing concentration. has anyone else had experience of this, and does it get any easier on the children. also i am finding it hard to see any positives of having such long lessons. any views would be very much appreciated. thank you

Yes, you get used it! It is exhausting but I found you get through a lot of work

I would have thought that was normal. Well, I would have expected 45 minutes for lunch probably and 15 for break.

When I was a girl our lessons were 45 minutes but all 'proper' subjects were double lessons and just things like music and drama were a single lesson.

Dd has 100 minute lessons, she doesn't have any complaints. I worry as kids not streamed that some of them bored and disrupt the rest of the class but they do this sort of learning where they have different groups working in different ways to their strengths and dd said all ok. I think it's just such a change from the old 35 minute lessons we had where you could get away with only doing about 20 minutes work once you'd all filled in and unpacked etc.

Dd only has 4 lessons a day so I assume they're long ones. My ex teacher mother says that it saves time as you don't have kids moving round the school every 40 mins, taking 5-10 minutes to get to their next classroom.

DD has 8 x 40min lessons each day so 40 a week, only 8 of which are double (incl double games and double art)She is studying 6/7 subjects each day.She is finding that quite hard i think flitting from one subject to another so many times a day.But maybe 'little and often' is a good thing.I don't know?

Blimey! How does the teacher have time for them to get all their stuff out at the start of the lesson, settle them down, teach them something, and give them time to pack away before the next lesson?!

DD has 5 x 55 min lessons. A 15 min break after second lesson, and a 50 minute break for lunch.

I don't know Couthy!

Dd1 has four 75 minute long lessons. They have a 15 minute break and 30 minutes for lunch. She'd love an extra 15 minutes at break! It means that her bag is lighter as fewer subjects to carry for; they can really get stuck into the subject matter (especially good higher up the school); and they waste less time moving between lessons.

Try 100 mins for a single lesson.

We used to have 4 70 minute lessons a day. Think it got changed to 5 60 minute lessons after I left.

I don't think 30 mins is long enough for lunch and world far rather my children had an hour do they could enjoy their food and have a chance to do an activity at lunch if they wished

They cut the lunch hour to stop the misbehaving.

Orpheus, your dd's school is very light on teaching time though at 3 hours/day. I would say we were more normal at 5 1/4 h, that extra time adds up over the years, and very much more than covers the odd extra five mins lost in settling/movement.
We have a six period day and i think it works very well, and long enough at lunch to run clubs.
Schools with behaviour problems have often tended to move to the 30 min lunch to cut down on problems.

Dds school finishes at lunchtime on a Wednesday. Year 7s have to stay for a club, other years can go home or Join a club if they want. Their choice.

Dd has put her name down for pamper club, the one I told her under no circumstances was she to join.

This kind of cotton wool parenting is why the Chinese will be running the world in 50 years

Personally I think the sort of schooling that teaches girls how to put makeup on for a whole afternoon a week is the reason why the Chinese will be Running the world.

loshad - orpheus said her school had 4 x 75 minute periods which comes to five hours a day not three

My lessons were all 110 minutes with five minutes to get to the next class. And it was fine.

Pamper club - wt???

Having taught on schools that have 30 minute lunches and schools that have an hour long lunch, I would have reservations about sending my children to a school with a 30 minute lunch . As a previous poster said a short lunch is often a sign of an underlying behavior problem.