Early Friday finish on the cards for high school pupils in Dumfries and Galloway
Primary schools are also being considered in this new proposal.
Staff and students from Dumfries and Galloway high schools could potentially start finishing earlier on a Friday.
Plans to include primary schools in the early end of week closures will be mentioned in the report that will go to councillors on Thursday.
The new timetable won’t come into effect until June 2025 and will see classes end for the day at 1.40pm, making it a four-and-a-half-day week.
If this proposal is approved, all 16 of the regions high schools will be using the same single timetable and the week’s total learning time will be 1650 minutes which is just below 28 hours.
It’s hoped that these shorter hours will improve the work-life balance of pupils and teachers.
But Dumfries and Galloway EIS rep Andrew O’Halloran is telling Greatest Hits Radio he has concerns.
“Teachers working hours are set nationally, no matter how much the council chooses to divide up the school day and the school week. That can’t change. Indeed, every increasing workload is a big issue in education, along with greater levels of violence in schools.”
With the Scottish Government aiming to further reduce teacher contact time from 22.5 hours per week to 21 hours, these ‘curriculum transformation’ plans fall in line well with the new proposal.
Parents, pupils, and teachers participated in consultations from April to June last year ran by the regions education chiefs to give their views on changing their current timetable.
Out of the students who took part in these engagement sessions, roughly 700 students were in favour of the new change, 29.5% preferred the status quo, just over 40% liked the four-and-a-half-week option, and just under 30% wanted Monday to Thursdays to remain as normal but have Fridays off completely.
O’Halloran from EIS continues added it'll mean less time in the classroom and more remote learning.
“The proposed time to the alignment and segment schools is designed to facilitate more online delivery of national courses across Dumfries and Galloway, however, online delivery is very much a poor relation to classes with qualified teachers in the room, building positive working relationships with pupils, reading and learning, organising group work, and attending to pupil’s welfare and safety.”
The education committee will meet on Thursday and be asked to approve the new timetable.
They will also be asked to agree for a further report that’s to be brought back to their August meeting to consider the possibility of aligning the primary school working week with it as well.