Lesson lenghth (London, Y7-8)

[WonderingAR]

In my day and a different country school lessons were 45 min long for everyone.

Now I hear on a school tour it's 75 minutes (1hr 15 min), then read about Harris secondary and it's 100 minutes (1hr 40min)! Is there no official limit on lesson duration at all?

Generally you are moving rooms between periods so have a movement break. I imagine when you have doubles, it's often for practical lessons where you are moving round more anyway. I would expect if that wasn't the case, the teacher would factor it in to their teaching and create natural variation in the lesson e.g. get them to move groups or go from listening to working independently.

Have you really never gone more than 45 mins without a break? I definitely did at school, uni and work. It's normal. We had 2 hours 20 mins with 1 lesson change at school no problem.

@BendingSpoons no, our schools had strict requirement about pauses between lessons.
Also about amount if natural light in the classes, so each class had to have windows etc.
They were ventilating classrooms between lessons to let fresh air in.

Just adding as well - in my current and previous school doubles were also more common for GCSE classes except for PE.

Where was that @WonderingAR? it sounds lovely!

I went to school in the 90s and this is exactly what we had. Periods were 50mins and you had either 'single' or 'double' lessons. You moved classroom between lessons. Singles were generally for subjects like music. For maths/english/science they were always doubles because otherwise you couldn't get much done. But my school didn't have some of the rules these days around when you could go to the loo and you could go in class if you needed to.

Basically everywhere in USSR. Now I'm curious if they still keep it like this in ex-USSR EU countries such as Lithuania and Estonia.

Where I live in Suffolk, the three period day is the norm, and so every lesson is 90mins. Pupils and teachers survive.

Yes apart from drama and music, they have these together in a block but 50 mins each. They have A and B week timetables to fit everything in. Year 7 and 8 were quite balanced across the two weeks, but this year for Y9 DS doesn't like his timetable, for example he has PE twice in week A and not at all in week B.

Look up your child’s current timetable at primary- I bet it only has two breaks a day, a short morning break and lunch.

Are they coping?

Our daughter just started Y7.

6 1 hour lessons per day. (Well actually 55 minutes as they have 5 minutes to get between classes.)

2 then break.
2 then lunch.
2 then home.

Pretty standard and she's very happy so far.

Im not a fan of hour long lessons - 40 mins seems much more reasonable. But that’s partly because 2 hours (double period) is SO long, for almost everything.

i think 2 hours between proper breaks is fine tho. Kids move between classrooms and that’s enough in between proper breaks

Now I've double-checked secondaries on my list and Harris looks like the most reasonable one in terms of schedule. They have 50min lessons and the first 20-min break is 1hr 45 min after morning registration.
United Learning academy near us has 45 min long lessons but the 1st long break is actually 2hrs 40 min after the morning "check-in".
2 other schools I was looking at have 2,5 and 3hrs between registration and the morning break.

How does your primary structure it so 1h 40 is their maximum time before a break? They're barely getting enough hours.

I really really think you're over reacting here. This is not a deal breaker when it comes to school choice. There are far more important issues.

@MultiplaLight I honestly was not paying attention to primary day schedule because it's a different kind of animal. In secondary they sit and stare on the screen most of the time from what I've seen on the open mornings. That's why I got very uncomfortable thinking they'll be doing it for hours without a proper break.

Being terrified seems a very extreme reaction indeed. I've been a teacher for 30 years. 50 mins to an hour is normal. Obviously at secondary school, students move from classroom to classroom between lessons even when there isn't a break. In some schools, 5 minute gaps are built in between lessons so that students have time to get to their next lesson. In schools which don't do this, lessons will start a few minutes later than stated (unless they are preceded by break time or lunch time).

At my school, registration is at 8:40, followed by two 1-hour lessons with 5 mins movement time in between. The first break of the day is 11:05 to 11:25. This is a pretty normal structure. We are lucky to still have a full hour for lunch. Many schools don't any more.

None of this is a problem. If anything, most students would probably prefer it if they did stay in one room for all their lessons and didn't have to navigate the busy corridors with heavy bags!

You likely walked around at similar points in the lesson. They aren't sitting and staring at the screen. They're writing, responding on whiteboards, taking in pairs/small groups etc. Teachers do mix it up! That's without the practical subjects offered too.

Primary y6 won't be much different. And in some cases worse, because they aren't moving classroom in primary.

Not in my experience. There's some screen time, but plenty ofeacher-led stuff, pair work and group work.

I really wouldn’t make this one of your top criteria for choosing a school unless you know your child has a particular problem with sitting still. Also I doubt there is a huge difference in reality

Things like behaviour, pastoral support, class and year size and subject choices are a lot more important

I have other criteria sorted, it's one of the few things I haven't considered previously.

Dd has double lessons and they don’t break in the middle so it’s 1.5hrs. She has adhd and it’s a real struggle for her. She has a time out card but the teachers don’t like to let her use it

Even back in the 1970s when I was at school we had 3x35 minute lessons, then break, then 2x35 minutes before lunch. After lunch another 3x35 minutes. We were certainly expected not to need loo breaks between clases. So before school, at morning break and at lunch. We were certainly capable of managing an hour and three quarters at a stretch.

Also about amount if natural light in the classes, so each class had to have windows etc.

Classrooms in the UK have windows. Big ones, in schools I've known.

It's not that bad and more importantly, it's what they're used to. In fact, they get more movement (when changing classes) than the kids in y6, for example, who have chunks of 1h30 , 1h30 and 2 h , with no movement in between. Unless you're one of the kids that hands the books out/puts them away. You're also forgetting that some of those lessons will be PE, Drama, Food tech, music , art, DT etc, plenty of opportunities for movement to break up the day, on top of changing classrooms for every lesson. DD gets about 7k steps just trudging up and down the stupid stairs and changing blocks because a lot of her lessons aren't even in the same building, much less in the same classroom.

I went to school like you, 50 min lessons with a 10 min break and a slightly longer one (20 min) for lunch. However , we also had much longer school hours in secondary. Some days would be 7/8 hours of lessons. We didn't change classrooms (the teachers came to us), but here they do.

It's honestly not as scary or bad as you've made it in your head.

Our school is 1 hour mon-thur and 50 mins on Fridays (they finish early). The exception is PE where they simply finish school 20 minutes later than they normally do just because it’s PE day…

when I was at school we had three 45 min lessons in the morning then two 1hr30 lessons in the afternoon.

When I was at school (late 80s) I had triple history on a Friday afternoon! (In 6th form)
Op you'd have been beyond terrified for my well-being!
I dread to think of how some teens today might have to cope in the near future with doing a job where they might not get a break for 4+ hours!