Break and lunch times reduced

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Interesting article on the BBC today about how much school have reduced break time over the last twenty years or so:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-48203595

No mention in the article of the impact on staff but I increasingly feel no one in school has time to breathe.

The article also says children don't socialise outside of school hours which to me explains why some students do manage the social time they do get at school so poorly.

We have 15 mins morning break at 10.50 and 35 mins for lunch(40 if you ignore a warning bell!).

Yes I remember the days when we had 75 minutes for lunch and as a music teacher I could eat lunch and then do a good rehearsal. In the past 15 years lunches have been around 45 minutes long so 10 minute bolt down lunch and 10/15 minute rehearsal (used to be at least 40 minutes) and then packing away instruments/music/music stands. An hour would be a luxury now for lunch

How odd, they’re saying that break and lunch times are shorter to ‘cram in more lessons’, but my experience is that lunch times have got shorter because of poor behaviour. Kids getting bored roaming the school for an hour, especially if they’re not allowed their phones, and so kicking off.

Shorter lunch times also save money by not having to pay people to be on duty.

At my school we’ve a 20 minute break and 40 minute lunch. Our pupils go outside to check ‘phones. I run a Drama club and Doctor Who Club. It’s a way of getting the pupils to socialise. I think the days of school playground games are,sadly,at an end.
No marbles,conkers,French Skipping,skipping,scoobie weaving,Top Trumps because they can cause damage ,be used to assault other pupils or promote gambling.
Pupils aren’t allowed to congregate in groups of more than 3 outside.
Board game club,film club,Pokemon- banned.
Revision classes only at lunchtime.
After school clubs the same.

What on earth kind of place is this ladymalfoy ???!

noble in our school it hasn't saved money , though as lunchtime staff can't be paid for parts of hours so they get a full hour's pay.

Behaviour has become worse since we shortened lunch and is now the worst it has ever been. Most of that is linked to size of the school but also the headlong rush to squeeze in lunch, shit stirring, a fight and then crying...

There is obviously something in this 'they don't know how to socialise any more' theory.

When I was at school, we had three thirty minute sittings for lunch.

Hence the lunch break was an hour and a half.

Plus twenty minute morning and afternoon outdoor playtimes.

I remember lazy days of doing handstands on the field, skipping, hopscotch, playing make believe games, bouncy balls, French elastic, running around carefree.

My school used to pay teachers to do a half hour lunch duty (hour lunch). Now we have 40 minutes and no teachers on duty.

We used to have sports clubs at lunch too, now they’re after school only which has reduced choice substantially.

Ah molly, I feel all dewy eyed. I remember playing, making daisy chains, climbing trees, grass stains, sitting around in sunshine (this cannot be accurate! I grew up in Scotland!!) It is sad that children no longer do this.

That was all primary though wasn’t it? In secondary I remember a lot of just hanging around.

We used to have 90 mins for lunch. There were clubs and we used to walk around school grounds and chat. I did bring a radio in for top 40 on a Tuesday

My children get 1hr 20 for lunch. But they are at an indy, and their school day doesn't finish until 4pm.

The long lunch times are useful, they have 2 lunch sittings, and plenty of rehearsals, sports, co-curriculars that happen in the second lunch period, so if you have rehearsals, practices, clubs etc to go to, you go to "early lunch".

Obviously, if they had shorter lunch breaks, they would probably finish earlier in the afternoon, so to some extent its six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Is there anything wrong with hanging around? I think most of my flirting was learnt at lunchtime. Plus clubs : drama, choir, bridge club , debating etc

I was so hard,me.

Try catering for those kids / staff in that short amount of time too !!

Yes it was primary, but my primary school went up to age 13.

And yes, we made a lot of daisy chains in between leapfrogging, tag and throwing tennis balls against the wall games.

My DD's secondary get 15 mins break and 30 mins lunch. They don't get any extra lesson time, they just finish ridiculously early. All extra circular clubs are after school, which is no good for kids reliant on school buses.

There is a direct correlation between squeezed lunchtime and the crap kids are fed from some canteens. Ours is like the worst fast food you can imagine, and all served in disposable non recyclable, eat on the go packaging.

My school still has a 20 min break in the morning and an hour for lunch. There are clubs on in sport, drama, music at lunchtime. And they get a good half hour for each of the clubs (they have lunch passes to go in first if they've got a club).

We're a secondary in a rural area so the head has made a conscious decision to keep clubs at lunchtime as around 80% of the kids would be unable to access any clubs if they were all after school, due to buses)

DD is at primary school and looked horrified at the thought of not having an afternoon playtime. She's y4 and has 20 mins in the morning, an hour at lunch, and 15 mins in the afternoon. She loves her playtime and feels very, very sorry for children at schools with shorter times to play.

I’m secondary and have 55 min lunch and 25 minute break. I didn’t realise how unusual that was becoming.

At my school a have 15 mins break and 30 mins lunch. Kids finish at 2.30pm so no extra lessons crammed in. We start at 8.30am.

It has it's pro's and con's like anything. It means if you run after school clubs you don't finish too late. Our meeting finishes at 4pm so not too late.
However, the day is very condensed and if you teach all 5 periods it can feel like you don't have time to draw breath at times. It can make P5 difficult as the kids haven't really had enough time to relax/eat/use toilet so arrive a bit hyper.

2.30 is so early to finish.

I think these early finishing times must correlate with the rise in crime and anti social behaviour.

Must be awful for parents with younger dc. Yes I know education is not childcare but ironically the schools used to finish later and there were not so many working parents