The School Day

Some lessons, a bit of free time, a lunch break, time for activities – organising the school day might seem, on the face of it, to be a pretty simple job. Nonetheless, the task of looking at what we do now, what we would like to be able to do an ideal world, and what we can do given the various constraints with which any school must wrestle, has been an enormous one. We have had discussions, informal and formal, with colleagues, with students, and with parents (and thanks again to the more than 200 parents who filled in our questionnaire on the subject). We have looked at what other schools do. We have asked ourselves fundamental questions. And the result of all of this will roll out in September, when the school day will look a little bit different for St Bede’s students.

So, how will the new day differ to that which is currently experienced by our students? Lessons will start fractionally earlier – at 8.30 – and will all be an hour in length (at the moment some are forty minutes, some an hour, some eighty minutes). Each day there will be four hours of lessons before lunch (with a half hour break, of course).

After lunch, things will get a little bit more complicated. There is no doubt in my mind that one of the key elements of being at a school such as St Bede’s is having the chance to compete in sports fixtures, to go on trips, to do things which require a slab of time (as well as effort and resources and planning). At the moment, with an hour of after-lunch lessons every day, from Monday to Friday, it is inevitable that, often, those lessons are disrupted by the needs of those fixtures and those trips. So, from September, Tuesdays and Thursdays will be cleared of afternoon lessons. If students need to be taken off-site, this can happen without it damaging their academic programmes. And activities which will benefit from having a longer period of time will be able to run without interruption. On Mondays and Fridays, we will have a single, hour-long lesson after lunch, and then shorter activities (much as we do now). And on Wednesdays we will have two hours of lessons after lunch – and no activities. Thus the amount of time for which students are in class, after lunch, during the week as a whole, will be lower, while the amount of time devoted to activities will stay roughly as it is now. But, by all-but-eliminating the need for students to be away from lessons, we will be able to make sure that those lessons are much more effective than has hitherto been the case, whilst at the same preserving the integrity of activities, trips and sports fixtures.

The number of timetabled hours in each week will rise slightly – we will have twenty seven hours, against just over twenty five hours at the moment. Twenty five hours will be spent in lessons, with the rest in tutorials and assemblies. At GCSE, we will be reducing, slightly, the time spent studying optional subjects, while increasing the amount of time devoted to English and Maths; likewise, at A Level, there will be a slight reduction in taught time, with a commensurate increase in independent study time. Why? In years 10 and 11, these changes will enable us to devote more time to the two ‘big’ subjects, and to bring back Physical Education for all students, while still giving tutorials the space that they have enjoyed this year. We are also bringing in the GCSE short course, for languages, citizenship and RS. At A Level, we will be able to give our students time to breath, and to do the reading and the writing and the thinking that we demand of them (at the moment, a student following four A Level courses does not have a single moment of untaught time!).

We will be ending the school day slightly earlier, too: buses will depart at 4.50. For those students who wish to remain longer at school, then of course this will be possible, but enough students (and their parents) were telling us that they were getting home exhausted each day that we had to listen.

On Saturdays, we will be having three hour-long lessons, finishing at midday. That earlier finish time will mean that sports fixtures will only remove students from class in exceptional circumstances, meaning that Saturday lessons are not depleted by the non-academic demands which are placed upon both our students and our staff. We will also be having three Saturdays each year where there are no lessons, allowing for a break when most it is needed during the long (and cold and dark) terms.

We believe that the newly configured school day will work far better for students. It will enable them to be taught at the time when they are most receptive to learning, in lessons of a sensible length. It will enable them to get out of the classroom and into their activities. And it will enable them to be even more busy, even more productive and even more successful. We’re looking forward to the change!


John Tuson
Academic Deputy Head