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These case studies show how schools with sixth forms are organising their timetables to widen student choice, make it possible for pre- and post-16 students to work together, and maximise learning time.

Consistent timetable alignment: better choice, better use of resources in schools

The flexible school day

The fifth-hour project: building independent learning skills and maximising use of staff time

The advantages of longer lessons

Consistent timetable alignment: better choice, better use of resources in schools

How do you provide maximum choice for students selecting their year 12 subjects and wanting to know what subjects will be available to them in year 13? The answer is to ensure blocks are aligned across year groups.

Whether timetable blocks are aligned consistently or randomly between different years has significant implications, not only for student choice but also for the deployment of teachers and the use of specialist facilities.

In the following examples, blocks A, B, C and D are the four main option blocks in the sixth-form timetable. A fifth block, E, is used for additional studies and occasionally to timetable classes that cannot be fitted into the other blocks.

View timetable examples with additional explanatory notes

The flexible school day

Slough Grammar School is a selective 11-18 school with approximately 1,045 pupils. It has restructured its school day because from September 2001 it would not otherwise have had enough accommodation to house its students and provide the necessary choice of subjects for Curriculum 2000.

The flexible school day, or FSD as the staff call it, increases the time available for teaching so that a wider choice of subjects can be offered to students. It makes better use of accommodation, particularly specialist facilities, and allows staff to be deployed more effectively.

The sixth form was the only part of the school affected by this restructuring. All other years in the school have a school day as before.

The sixth form is over one-third of the total student population. Their education is room-intensive by dint of the smaller group sizes and because they need to work alone and in groups on independent learning and assignments.

Slough's flexible school day

The flexible school day means exploiting time outside the normal school day at three points:

• before the normal school day
• during the lunch break
• after the end of a normal school day.

Previously, the school had four blocks of time in which to timetable all year 7 to year 13 courses:

9.00 to 10.10
10.30 to 11.40
11.45 to 12.55
13.55 to 15.05 (and an additional period on Monday and Tuesday to 15.40)

The flexible school day operates with seven blocks of time. Only the sixth form is timetabled in all seven blocks of time; see the diagram below.

Lessons are normally 70-minute double periods, although some subjects have single periods of 35 minutes.

Slough Grammar School's timetable

Lessons outside the standard school day are 60 minutes long, and the lunchtime period is 65 minutes.

The process

A radical new development needs to be introduced carefully, especially when it involves significant changes to working hours.

It was essential to win the goodwill and support of staff, students and parents, and to anticipate all the practical implications.

This was how Slough did it.

1. Soundings with individual departments that might be affected (information technology and specialist subjects where accommodation was a particular pressure point).
2. Initial ideas formulated.
3. Staff consultation through the Curriculum Development Committee and through informal channels. This process highlighted some key issues.
4. Model proposed in the light of initial work.
5. Senior management team half-day seminar.
6. Presentation to governors and outline approval.
7. Further consultation with staff.
8. Consultation with professional associations.
9. Consultation with parent governors.
10. Full governors' meeting to ratify the changes.
11. Governors' statement to parents issued.
12. Parents' discussion evening.
13. An FSD (Flexible School Day) project group to address the practical details, '... so that everything that could be thought of as a possible barrier was addressed and surmounted'. The outcome of this group's work was the FSD guide booklet described below.

No change to contact hours or staff contracts

As lessons outside the normal school day are 60 minutes rather than the standard 70 minutes, each sixth-form subject uses some lessons inside and some outside the normal school day. The time allocated to subjects has remained the same at roughly 4 1/2 hours per subject.

Staff contracts are unchanged. Staff teach outside normal hours only on a voluntary basis, with time off provided in lieu. The resource centre and canteen open for longer; students have a more relaxed lunch break and more opportunities to study at school.

A guide to the flexible school day

The culmination of the work of the FSD project group was a booklet, A guide to the flexible school day, which dealt with the practical details of the new school day. It covered:

• timings of the new school day
• procedures for electronic registration
• management of student non-contact time
• supervision and support (which senior management team member will be on call during the flexible school day sessions, what administrative and technical assistance will be available, and the new opening times for the canteen, including when breakfast is available).

This is the detail on which the success of the FSD depends.

The fifth-hour project: building independent learning skills and maximising use of staff time

This project asked important questions about which aspects of learning require a teacher to be standing in front of the class and which students could learn on their own.

The fifth-hour project uses the notion of a fifth hour to encourage teachers to rethink the relationship between taught and independent learning.

Northumberland advisory teacher Robert Peers led the project at Haydon Bridge High School, aiming to make the most effective use of teaching and non-teaching time.

The idea of the fifth hour: planning learning

Each A level subject is taught for four hours a week. An additional fifth hour is timetabled but no teacher is present. In other respects, the fifth hour is like an ordinary lesson: students go to a particular classroom at a specified time and undertake activities specified by the teacher, often involving group work, but they do it without the teacher; they study independently.

Teachers have to think about what the students should do in their timetabled fifth hour, which encourages them to plan students' learning rather than simply planning their own lessons. Students' total subject learning comprises four lessons, the fifth hour and three hours' homework. This approach makes the most of an expensive commodity – the teacher's time.

The fifth hour appears on the students' timetable, but not on the teacher's.

Key features of the fifth-hour system

• The school undertakes to set clear and specific tasks for the independent learning time.
• Students undertake to attend the fifth hour 'classes' and to complete their independent learning tasks.
• Students are expected to arrive at lessons having completed the agreed work during their independent learning time. If they have not completed it, they are not allowed to attend the lesson. Instead, they work on their own to complete the work, submitting it by the end of the lesson. They are then given work to cover the missed lesson as well as the independent learning activities for the next lesson.
• These mutual responsibilities are set out in the learning agreement between the school and the student.

Guidance for the teachers

The teachers in the project received the following advice on how to operate the scheme.

Does it work?

The project evaluations were very encouraging.

Teachers:

• saw the potential of this approach and were favourably disposed
• had some difficulties adjusting their preparation methods
• found that reliable room allocations for the fifth hour were vital for the success of the scheme

and said that in future they would:

• set more group work in the fifth hour and more preparatory work in independent learning time (ILT)
• involve students and colleagues in planning and monitoring students' use of ILT
• be more confident about promoting effective use of ILT and giving students some autonomy
• make ILT work more structured with clearer expectations.

Students:

• recognised the potential of a structured fifth hour
• had become dispirited when tedious or difficult work had been set for the fifth hour
• had been disrupted in some fifth hour lessons by their peers
• those taking modern languages felt most positive
• would appreciate some flexibility about how they used their ILT.

The advantages of longer lessons

In September 2002, Greensward College in Essex moved to a school day of three 100-minute lessons for all its 11-18-year-old students. The college conducted research before making its decision, and identified the following advantages of longer lessons:

• increased learning time, as less time is spent moving between lessons and starting and finishing lessons
• the use of a wider range of teaching and learning styles
• a minimum of 20 per cent non-contact time, which improves the quality of teachers' preparation time because they have longer for planning and need to prepare fewer separate lessons
• better deployment of staff to meet curriculum needs, as the new timetable allows teachers to work in distinct faculty teams across half a year group
• a break after every lesson
• less stress for teachers and students
• free periods that are long enough for staff and students to achieve something
• fewer books for students to carry each day.

Also see

> Timetabling

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