Secondary Teachers, does 5 lessons per day and an early finish actually work well in your opinion?

[flowerpot1000000]

This is the new proposal starting from Sept. I can see lots of positives so really only have 2 concerns:

Dont think tutor time is enough and there arent any double lessons for things like cookery and D&T and Sciences

8.30am - tutor time 15 mins
8.45am Lesson 1 - 55mins
9.40am - break 15mins
9.55m - Lesson 2
10.50 - Lesson 3
11.45am - Lunch
12.30pm - Lesson 4
1.15pm - Lesson 5
2.10-3pm - Lesson 6
Friday finish 2.10pm on Friday's so miss a lesson

That's a lot of lessons after lunch! How do they ensure all subjects get the right amount of curriculum time with those differing lesson lengths?

Many secondaries have 5 lessons : I would hate to have period 6 lessons in your place... and your lunch is early!

We took out am tutor time to 'get started on learning' and it's not been very popular, so at least you are keeping that.

Why are you changing?

Also, what is the reasoning for the early Friday finish?

Not great for practical lessons. Imagine cooking in 55 minutes!

11.45 is far too early to have lunch, that’s still morning!

Ks4 food and dt generally would be almost impossible I think.

I wouldn't like that at all. Break is too early, lunch is too early, too many lessons after lunch

I don't understand why you can't have double lesson, though : plenty of places for them on that t/t

That said, I am fairly sure we don't have double lessons at our school at KS3 and 4 : all our lessons are an hour.

We have:

8.30-8.45 am form time
8.45-9.45 period 1
9.45-10.45 period 2
10.45-11 break
11-12 period 3
12-1 period 4
1-1.30 much
1.30-2.30 period 5

Seems to work well for us -the day is very condensed but I quite like it the way it is. The only down side is that of you have a full day it is really hectic.

Works well for meetings/extra curricular activities etc. As you still don't finish too late.

We have pretty much exactly the same as pumpkin but our break time is in a different place. I like it.

Not break time, tutor time! But yes, works well for after school clubs, intervention and the day goes really fast!

My kids' school does
8.30 registration
8.45 - 9.45 lesson 1
9.45-10.45 lesson 2
10.45-11.00 break
11.00-12.00 lesson 3
12.00-1.00 lesson 4
1.00-1.30 lunch
1.30-2.20 lesson 5
2.20-2.30 registration
home
Works well apart from such a short lunch and although there is homework club and clubs, mine are always home very early in the day!

I think pumpkin's model is pretty standard. We have the same with form time after lunch and a 5 minute longer break. Our day is longer because our site is huge so we havedawdling movement time between lessons

6 short lessons per day are a nightmare.

Surely if they want six lessons a day, a more sensible structure would be:

Tutor time, lesson 1, lesson 2 (break 10.35), lesson 3, lesson 4 (lunch 12.40) lesson 5, lesson 6.

Having 3 lessons grouped together in the afternoon will impact concentration, and if a student has a concern about the subject in lesson 5, they've got no opportunity to speak to the teacher before or after.

My Dc's school only have five lessons a day, but each is an hour and they only have one lesson after lunch.

They do put in a period six for students doing practical subjects or triple science. And the library is open until 4 (but I don't think students use it after yr7)

One local secondary finishes at lunchtime on a Friday and the time is used for staff CPD - they only close for one inset per year, to have a whole staff off site training day.

My DCs secondary school had this and it worked well. Everyone liked the early finish.

Very different here. Three lessons per day. All one and three quarter hours. Start at 9 and finish at 3.45pm.

This is very similar to our set up, but we have the 2.10 finish on Tuesdays too, and split breaks/lunches.

8.30-9.25 Period 1
9.25-10.20 Period 2
10.20-11 Break/Tutor (20 mins each, 7 & 10 together and 8,9,11 together. They alternate who is on early/late break each week).
11-11.55 Period 3
11.55-13.20 Period 4 - lunch falls 11.55-11.25 or 12.50-13.30 depending on who is on early/late.
13.20-14.15 Period 5 (ends 2.10 on early finish)
14.15-15.05 Period 6

Long days feel very long on early lunch week, whilst early days feel a bit top heavy on a late lunch. Kids are used to it though and it works OK. Period 6 can be challenging towards the end of term.

Looks likely a nightmare to plan for.

We have 5 lessons all an hour long, but KS3 and KS4 have different breaks and lunches, which is a bit of a pain at times. Also year 7 have their own lunch time, in the middle of period 4! So 30 mins lesson, 30 mins lunch, then the other 30 mins. I've never liked that. Imagine how much work isn't done from the youngest year group dawdling and getting lost in the early days!

I assume practical lessons will just be timetabled for 2 consecutive lessons. Can't see a problem with that.

I wouldn't like it as Lessons 4 and 6 are different lengths to the other lessons. Also, 3 lessons in a row in the afternoon sounds tough.

Your thread title mentions 5 lessons a day and an early finish yet your timetable shows 6 lessons a day?

Or are you talking about the early finish on Friday?

I would hate to have lunch that early and think that the afternoons on Monday-Thursday would be long, slow and painful!

What’s the thinking behind finishing early on Fridays?

God, you all finish so early each day (and yet are talking about long days)!

P1 begins at 8.45 and P6 finishes at 4.05 where I teach.

I worked in a school with 6x50 minute lessons, finishing at 2.55, which I thought was great, as I could pick up my own DCs from school and have a decent domestic life.

My current school is 6x60 (2-2-2), finishing at 3.30, which is fine. The extra hour a day means we can have 19 weeks holiday a year. Can’t complain.