Are your school hours changing?

Not a nationwide thing, there are any number of combinations and permutations schools use. My school finishes half day Friday and 3.40 other days with a short lunch and a 8.40 start.

Some schools do this to facilitate training or other after school activities on certain days.

In Limerick for a time Wednesdays were shorter and schools tended to play matches on Wednesday evenings.

IMO they should have consulted the parent's council with such a big change though.

inocybe wrote: »

My son's school have just put the timetable up on line, and to my horror I see that they've changed the school hours (with no prior notice to parents!)
School now ends at 3 on Wed and Fri, and at 4 on the other days. Have talked to a few friends so I know that there are at least 2 other schools in the locality doing similar. One of them has shorter days on Mon, Wed and Fri. I'm wondering if this is a nationwide policy change, has anyone else had an unannounced change in school hours?
I can't meet the school bus at 3, I have no idea what to do with my son I don't understand how schools can just go ahead and do this.

Schools have to provide a minimum of 28 hours of class time to students per week. Some schools with larger numbers (and in the better times) were able to provide over and above this. A typical timetable might have been 9-4 Monday to Friday, with 6 hours of classes each day = 30 hours per week.

With cutbacks in general in education in the last 7 or so years and in some schools falling numbers, the number of teachers per school has fallen. It's not possible for some schools to go above the 28 hours, so often rather than cut exam subjects, they will cut the number of classes per subject if they were in excess of the subject requirement or they will scrap non exam subjects like computers.

The school I work in used to do the 30 hour week. Now we do 28. 9-4 Mon - Thurs and finish at lunchtime on Friday. Many schools in my area are similar. We simply didn't have enough teachers to cover the extra (excess) hours.

The school also has to consider the contracts with Bus Eireann. We found that we had to (well I assume the Board of Management) negotiate for times that the bus driver was willing/able to collect the students. A 3pm finish was non negotiable as he was doing the primary school run so we could finish at lunch or stick to 4pm.

They should have probably informed you earlier than this OP, but it's not going to change now. How far is your home from where your son gets off the bus? Can he walk home? Get a lift with a neighbour getting off at his stop?

I'm out of school a good few years now. I know the secondary schools changed their hours last year.
I think they start earlier now and they finish early on Friday.
The reason for this was because of cut backs.
Does your school offer after school study?
This is the only solution to your problem in my opinion. You'd have to go and collect him when it's over tough.

rainbowtrout wrote: »

It's not a standardised thing. Some schools change if necessary

To best of my knowledge it was on the local papers/Internet that the schools were changing hours because of cuts made the department of education. I didn't think I said it was standard. I should have pointed out in my area.