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  • School Scheduling Questions

    Hey folks, long time no see! Been lurking but no posting! Been Majorly busy with work (I am in year 5 of teaching HS, 2nd year in a more rural Virginia town and I love it here!) I teach math and my wife (Mrs. Quit) is the band director. We have a block scheduling system where:

    1st and 2nd block is A/B (alternating, year-long) (IOW, you have your A day classes and B day classes)
    3rd and 4th are semester-long block. They change mid-year.

    All classes are 90 minutes each here. Our school is looking at a different schedule for next year, among the possibilities are:

    * 7 period day
    * All day A/B Block
    * 8 Period day

    What did your HS use? Just add your $0.02. Thanks!

  • #2
    My high school actually used a six-period day, although the school I went to before that used a 7-period day (I'm in Aus for the record, where the general day goes: homeroom, 2 lessons, recess, 2 lessons, lunch, 2-3 lessons, bell). Very handy and less confusing, although just factor in the fact that your lesson are 90 minutes each.

    The school I graduated from used the system as follows:

    -six-period day.
    -15-minute homeroom.
    -50 minute lessons with a short buffer in between so that you could change classes.
    -One 100 minute lesson once a week (known colloquially as a double) and generally the plan was that the doubles would be Tuesday-Thursday, with two single lessons at the end of the day, plus single-block lessons Monday and Friday. So basically 3 50-minute lessons per week, plus one 100 minute lesson, making for around 250 minutes (around 4 hours, 10 minutes) a week of contact time with the teacher.
    The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

    Now queen of USSR-Land...

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    • #3
      My high school had 4 classes each day for 90 minutes, with a fall and a spring semester. There were a handful of A/B classes that lasted all year, but were mostly limited to subjects like band and choir that necessitated a year long involvement. I really liked the schedule because

      -45 minutes isn't enough time to do a lot in class. It's hard to get a cool science experiment done or take more than a short test.
      -Switching classes halfway through the year mean you could double up on things and take Spanish 1 in the fall and Spanish 2 in the spring. This helped people catch up and/or get ahead and also helped people focus on subjects that they liked (such as a friend who took 2 science classes each year).
      -We had 8 classes when most of the other county schools had 7. It meant slightly less time per class (which is why they eventually abolished the schedule) but I preferred being able to take an extra fun class. Most students didn't get to take electives until their junior year because they were trying to get the state requirements in, but we got to start in our freshman year.
      Last edited by trailerparkmedic; 01-08-2012, 11:02 PM.

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      • #4
        My school had 4-period days with NO rotating A/B classes. Most classes were a semester long (half the school year) with a few being a quarter long (usually classes like art classes or some optional English classes) or year-long. It actually really sucked for classes like band and choir, which required you to sign up for the entire year, because a lot of kids didn't want to be in band that often. When the school introduced the 4-period day, they insisted that kids could still do extra curriculars like band and choir and that it wouldn't cut into the other subjects and that they'd only actually be in band the same as if the school was run on a 7-period day, but I just don't get their math. If you're in band, you're in band every single day for 90 minutes, all year round. It equals 1/4 your entire school schedule for the year, and a lot of kids didn't want to devote that much time to it. Plus, a lot of other classes, especially the advanced placement (AP) classes, were offered at the same time as band, and upper classmen would often favor those over band in order to get college credit. As a result, the band suffered hugely. When I was a Freshmen, there were like 50 people in the entire band.

        Otherwise, I do agree that 90-period days are useful for things like science classes, like TPM mentioned, where you need the extra time to really get anything useful done. But I wish they would have done an A/B system like most schools with 90-period days do.

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        • #5
          My high school was on the 6 period day until my senior year when it switched to a 7 period day.
          Don't wanna; not gonna.

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          • #6
            Technically we had 9 periods, but 5/6/7 were lunch periods, so you had a lunch and a "double" class (though lunch was less than half an hour, so the "double" was only a little longer than the regular 45-minute class period). Yes, that meant people with 6th lunch had a break in the middle of their class (I never had that, though). So really, we had 8. This was in the early '90s...I had never heard of block scheduling then.
            I don't go in for ancient wisdom
            I don't believe just 'cause ideas are tenacious
            It means that they're worthy - Tim Minchin, "White Wine in the Sun"

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            • #7
              Back 30 years ago we had a 6 class period day. When oldest was in high school they had a 7 class period day. Now, from Little Bits started high school and up to currently, they use a modified block schedule for Freshmen and Sophmores and an 8 class day for Juniors and Seniors. For Freshmen and Sophmores, they have three teams of students. Their Science, Gym and Health classes are two class periods long. Science lasts a semester and Gym and Health are Quarters.

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              • #8
                When I was in high school, we had 7 class periods plus a lunch period of just under 30 minutes.

                Nowadays they may have switched over to block scheduling. I know they had to muck around with some of the schedules when they introduced International Baccalaureate classes, which I would've been interested in taking, were they available to me.

                Now git offa mah lawn.
                Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

                "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

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                • #9
                  My alma mater used the 7 periods/hours schedule with (IRRC) fourty-five minutes to one hour lunch. We had the option of off-campus lunch (which was a big deal since most of the other schools didn't have it anymore) but a few years after me and my sister graduated, they banned off-campus lunch.
                  Last edited by tropicsgoddess; 01-09-2012, 05:54 AM.
                  I don't get paid enough to kiss your a**! -Groezig 5/31/08
                  Another day...another million braincells lost...-Sarlon 6/16/08
                  Chivalry is not dead. It's just direly underappreciated. -Samaliel 9/15/09

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                  • #10
                    My high school used block scheduling. We had 4 classes a day per semester and each semester we had 4 new classes. Each year we had a set number of required classes (freshmen had 5, sophomores and juniors had 4, and seniors only 2-English and gov/Econ). Other then those classes we had electives. Seniors usually had the best luck getting the electives they wanted but freshman year was oddly enough the only year I got mine top electives.
                    Because for senior year I only had 2 required classes I took an extra math class (liked the teacher) and an extra science (botany/zoology). I also took Spanish 3 and 4.
                    Driver Picks the Music, Shotgun Shuts His Cakehole.
                    Supernatural 9-13-05 to forever

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                    • #11
                      Six period days, with interruptions. I'm in the UK. On an alternating A/B week schedule.

                      Registration, p1, p2 (break) p3, p4 (lunch & afternoon registration), p5, p6.

                      All periods were 50 minutes long, with random doubles depending on what classes you were in. For my final year I had Double biology then english, maths and Double physics to finish on A week tuesday, then they switched the sciences on B week.

                      It was to get the required amount of hours per class in that we had doubles. Not many teachers liked them, and we had a break in the middle or left early most of the time. They didn't always stretch over a break time but some did.
                      "So you think they named this ship the "Chimera" because there's a monster on board?" Tony DiNozzo

                      "They did not name it the puppy" Ziva David - NCIS, Chimera

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                      • #12
                        My high school had block scheduling, with A/B/C days. C days were Monday, where you had all six of your classes. The rest of the week alternated A/B days, with three classes per day.

                        I have to share my friend's school schedule, though. She went to Penticton HS for a year. They have 8 classes, with A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H days. It was the most f***ed up schedule I ever saw. They wanted students to have a homeroom with each teacher once. So for day A, you'd have classes 1, 3, 5, 7, and for day B, you'd have 2, 4, 6, 8, then day C, you'd have 3, 5, 7, 1, day D would be 4, 6, 8, 2, day E would be 5, 7, 1, 3...you can start to see the pattern. Which means that one week, you schedule would go A, B, C, D, E, then next week F, G, H, A, B, then the following week C, D, E, F, G...yeah, it makes my head hurt, too. Why do you think my friend only lasted a year there?

                        (My HS never had a homeroom. I'm not even entirely sure what homeroom is.)
                        Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

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                        • #13
                          Quoth CloserToSane View Post
                          Six period days, with interruptions. I'm in the UK. On an alternating A/B week schedule.

                          Registration, p1, p2 (break) p3, p4 (lunch & afternoon registration), p5, p6.

                          All periods were 50 minutes long, with random doubles depending on what classes you were in. For my final year I had Double biology then english, maths and Double physics to finish on A week tuesday, then they switched the sciences on B week.

                          It was to get the required amount of hours per class in that we had doubles. Not many teachers liked them, and we had a break in the middle or left early most of the time. They didn't always stretch over a break time but some did.
                          We didn't have the alternating schedule, but we did have the same schedule you did.

                          For my year 12 music class, the program was split according to what you wanted to do. The units were (and I think still are): Musicianship (theory), Composing and Arranging (self-explanatory), Solo Performance, Ensemble Performance (self-explanatory, although in the case of ensemble, it could be a school-based ensemble i.e. a school choir or concert band), Individual Project (something relating to music i.e. putting together a CD or teaching a little kid music) and Performance Special Study (you learned a whole series of songs that had a common link to them i.e. a full sonata or the full score from a musical, and you had to do a journal on them). Depending on your schedule, you could either attend all of the lessons, some of the lessons or none of them.

                          My music teacher had a whole mix, so as a result, she divided up the timetable accordingly: the double lesson would be devoted to performance practice, while the single lessons would be devoted to musicianship and individual project catchup. If you weren't needed that lesson period, you were essentially granted a free study period.

                          The only other rule with the Year 12 study periods was that if you had a free period first thing in the morning or last lesson of the day, you could leave early or come in late.
                          The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

                          Now queen of USSR-Land...

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