Thursday 07 July 2022
From the start of the 2022/2023 academic year, The Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre's school day will finish 25 minutes earlier to bring it in line with the three other secondary schools.
La Mare de Carteret, Les Beaucamps, St Sampson's and The Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre will all finish at 3.05pm going forward. For the former three there will be no change to the current school day. For the Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre it will mean a shorter lunch break (making it a break of one hour in line with the other schools) and earlier finish time.
This marks a further step forward towards bringing all the Secondary School Partnership schools into alignment, ahead of the full implementation of the new model of Secondary and Post-16 Education by September 2025.
Liz Coffey, Executive Principal of the Secondary School Partnership said:
'This is a very positive step and there are so many benefits to this change. It will help ensure a similar educational experience across all sites and allow activities at the end of the school day to start sooner for both students and staff. Inter school sporting fixtures and meetings or training involving staff across schools can get underway sooner.'
Minor adjustments will be made to staffing practices within the Grammar School & Sixth Form Centre to accommodate the one-hour lunchbreak and earlier finish. This has been discussed directly with affected teams.
The time change is also requiring a rearrangement of the school bus service for each of the four schools, to ensure there are sufficient spaces available for all students that wish to travel by bus. In conjunction with Environment & Infrastructure and the bus operators, routes may be amended to meet the newly standardised 3.05pm school pick up time.
This will ensure a more efficient service and will anticipate some of the changes required for the move to three 11-16 schools as part of the reorganisation of secondary and post-16 education.
All parents and carers will shortly be sent a questionnaire to indicate which school journeys their children wish to make by bus from September and any changes to school bus routes will be communicated before the new term starts.
This system was used successfully during the Covid lockdowns to establish the demand for bus travel to and from the schools when they were only open to a limited number of students. This tried and tested booking process is now being rolled out on a bigger scale to capture all students wishing to travel by bus, to help ensure space on buses is used as efficiently as possible.
