The Choices and Consequences system - By Ella H, Isobel D and Holly W

Are lessons too long? By Verity V

Are Lessons Too Long?

Many students think that lesson times and the school day are too long. This is because they feel that they can not focus on a lesson for too long. Most students can concentrate for around 40 minutes at most without breaks - yet each lesson is 50 minutes or 100 minutes without any breaks in between which can making focusing extremely challenging for some students.

Interviews with Year 10 Students:

Question 1 - Do you think lessons are too long?

1) Yes because I lose interest quickly as it’s too long to concentrate for without breaks especially if we are just taking notes rather than doing an activity.

2)No, lessons are fine the way they are because otherwise too much time is spent putting away our stuff and we end up losing almost 15 minutes of learning anyway.

3)No because if lessons are too short I won’t learn enough and we would probably have to have shorter holidays to make up for the missed information.

4)Yes, because I still miss out on important information since it is challenging to focus on the lesson for the whole time.

Question 2 - Does it have a negative impact on you?

1)Yes because sometimes I get home really late and don’t have enough time to do the homework given to me and have to rush it.

2)Yes because it affects my grades if can’t concentrate on everything I’m being taught in lessons which can be stressful.

3) It can mean that I don’t get enough sleep because of having to stay up doing homework and having to wake up at 6am.

Questions 3 - How long do you think lessons should be?

1) I think lessons should be 40 minutes.

2) I think that lessons should still be 50 minutes long but with breaks in between doubles so that you don’t lose interest.

Question 4 - Is the school day too long?

1) The school day does not need to be any shorter because even when I get home late there is plenty of time to do everything I need to do along with my own free time.

2) I don’t have enough time to spend time with family on top of all the homework I have to do and after-school clubs because of how long the school day is plus travelling home, so I agree that the school day needs to be shorter.

From looking at the varied opinions of students on this topic, you can see the list of positive and negative sides on whether lessons should be shorter. A majority of students agree lessons need to be shorter because their learning and grades are impacted because of their lack of concentration in lesson. However, there are still students who believe that lessons are fine as they are, some of the reasons being that sometimes up to 20 minutes of lessons is spent not doing the actual lesson but getting things out and packing away or time is wasted by disruptive students.

4 out of 5 of students asked agreed that lessons are too long but only 2 out of 5 agreed that the school day should be shorter.

Too long school days and lessons can result in tiredness because of having to get up as early as 6am in order to be ready for school and catch a bus in time to make it to school and arriving home late just to do more school work can mean students staying up late which would further the issue of not being able to be motivated to do their work as well as affecting their health if they are not getting enough sleep which is likely since it is proven by studies that teenagers are the least likely to get the required hours of sleep.

If the school day was shorter, more homework would be completed and levels would increase because students would have more time to revise and complete homework and would be more motivated in lessons. It could also make more time for after-school activities and more students would have the time to go to them.

Overall, it is obvious that students preference would be to not change the length of lessons too dramatically, but to add breaks in between. Lots of students think that if school started at 10am and ended at around 3-3:20pm it would be much more convenient.