Help! School reduction of the amount of classes and longer lessons

[40thbirthday]

Secondary school reduced this year from 5 x 50 minute lessons to 3 lessons per day. Large site, reasons stated not moving children around, more lesson and learning time. Is this standard in secondary schools? Some lessons are nearly 1.5 hours and child struggling with concentration throughout the duration. I don’t think this works and there is feedback yo say children losing concentration, not getting though the ‘extra learning’ as becoming bored. Any insight from people in education on the benefits of this or potential rationale/reasons. Thanks.

We had this when we returned from lockdown. I hated it. Glad we went back to 5x60 lessons.

We have 3 100 minute lessons a day at my daughters school. Seems to be helping them to commentate more on the learning.

The private school I work in had also introduced this 100 hour lessons but they have 4 a dAY. The teachers seem to like it too.

i worked in a school last year that had 3x 100 minutes per day. I found it a bit of an effort teaching maths, but for some subjects it was really good, e.g DT, art, PE and for some humanities subjects. I was quite glad that these subjects had equal importance.

Y10 DD has 6 x 1 hour plus tutor group. At least 1 double period a day, but they get a different teacher for each hour in everything except maths.

She seems pretty happy with it

blimey - that sounds like a long day! Are there longer breaks too (My DC's school has a 20 minute break and a 30 minute break, for comparison).

To OP - I can see that longer lessons are beneficial for some subjects and as the DC get older. Perhaps when everyone gets more used to it, your child will adapt and the lesson structures might change so there's more of a natural break?

It goes against all modern science which shows humans learn best in short stretches with physical breaks in between.

Some school leaders can be excessively keen to change things in ways that are unproven, which is a big risk to take with the education of a whole school.

I'd be complaining - preferably with other parents - and asking to see the scientific research behind the decision

That seems odd. I doubt they'd change it on parents say so but it would be good to see the rationale and if they've given thought to changing back if it doesn't work.

When I was at secondary school we had 9 x 30 or 35 minute lessons. In reality. you ended up with quite a few doubles (and triples for Art, DT or PE) but it worked surprisingly well. You need good discipline though so kids don't waste half the lessons messing around in the corridors, and crafty timetabling so single lessons aren't at opposite ends of the school.

They have a 50 minute lunch break but no other breaks. School finishes at 4.20, but full programme of sports and extra curricular available from 4.30pm so she stays late 3 nights a week for that.

Are teachers giving them mini-breaks in the lessons? That would still be far less disrupting than moving classes for a new subject.

DD in sixth form college has 120 minute lessons, two per week for each A level subject. They have breaks within the lessons and lots of variety of things to do, but they don't have to move classrooms, so less of everyone's time wasted I guess.

If she has consecutive lessons there is always a 15 minute gap between them.

She seems ok with it, it does make the timetable much neater and less bitty. There is only one day when she has a gap of a couple of hours, so it's efficient in that way.

She is older though - up to Y11 her school had 6 x 50 minute lessons, one of them had a 20 minute break for lunch in the middle, it was a mess.

Our school has just moved to having 3 lessons a day of 100 minutes.

I'm not at all keen on this. I think it's a gimmick trying to make this academy trust stand out.

Most teenagers will struggle with concentrating for 100 minutes. The SEN pupils have just been left to flounder.

I agree that some subjects like art and the sciences (if they actually do experiments in the lesson - so far they have not) might benefit from a longer time. However, for a lot of subjects like RS, PSHE etc 100 minutes is a very long time to fill. I can't help thinking a lot of teachers will just pad things out to take up time and the actual learning time will decrease not increase.

If it's new to the teachers too, hopefully they will soon learn how to break the lessons up - you need to plan in more variety than you might think. Better to lose 10 minutes of focussed learning in the middle of the lesson, doing something a bit different, than to lose all concentration for the last 20 minutes.

There's a big disadvantage when it comes to missed lessons. If you're off ill for a day and have missed five different lessons, you can usually get up to speed again fairly quickly. If you've missed 100 minutes of a new topic, that's rather more difficult. DD saw one teacher only on Mondays last year - which meant twice between Easter and half-term. She saw another teacher only on Wednesdays, and between strikes and illness had some big gaps there too.

It's quicker to timetable - and a lot easier to timetable part-timers as they see each group fewer times, so you should end up with fewer split classes.

I can't help thinking a lot of teachers will just pad things out to take up time and the actual learning time will decrease not increase.

They'd be in big trouble for not finishing the syllabus if they did this, so I don't think you need to worry.

Just think of it as a double lesson - it gives the teachers more flexibility because they don't have to take any notice of where the previous lesson would have ended.

If you think of all the time that's wasted settling down at the beginning, doing the register, finishing a bit early because there's only 5 minutes to go and it's not worth starting a new topic, all that has been halved, so I can see why they think it's a good idea.

I think though the lessons will seem really long at first, but then they'll get use to it and adapt.
My school had 35/40 minute lessons and I remember when my dc started at their school with an hour long lessons, thinking that they'd really drag.
Actually they all like them that long, and even liked it when during covid they had double lessons, so 2 hours long. Even ds (who has ADHD) said that he preferred longer lessons as it gave time to settle down and really concentrate.

I used to hate 45 min lessons.. only just got into it & you were off. We had double periods of 90 min and mikes better as you actually got work done

Thanks for all the points. Some really interesting takes. I did mention it to the deputy head and they said everyone is adjusting to the routine. I would like to understand the science and rationale behind as well as the measures they have put in place to qualify its working. I do feel they will not change it back. Keep the insights coming. I just guess we’re struggling and wonder if this is contributing to it.

Ours does 5 x 70min lessons a day, only 30 mins lunch and a 15 minute 'breakfast' break. It's a shame they don't get to socialise very much, but it's in the top 5% of non selective schools in the country in terms of performance so they're doing something right. 90 minutes does seem long.

Good teachers will have breaks built into their lessons regardless of whether they are 50 minutes or 90 minutes. It really should not have any impact on learning.

And when I say break I don't mean breaks of chatting etc. I mean different tasks so pupils can concentrate in short bursts of about 20 minutes and then move on to something else to help focus attention again. They are professionals and will have researched this, to weigh up the benefits and costs. Please give it a chance. It works fine in many other schools and colleges.

My DC's school does this - 3 long lessons. They do it to manage transition time but I think it's too long for kids to concentrate. The attainment and progress in the school are not very good.

It is considerably under the minimum teaching time weekly requirement for English schools, ( supposed to be 32.5 h/week)

Sorry, that was based actually on other poster’s comments about 3 x 100 min lessons, if yours are longer it might be ok.

I think 32.5 hours is the minimum length of the school week (including registration, breaks etc.) not necessarily teaching time.