Yahoo News Heads overhaul homeschool timetables to give pupils breaks during coronavirus lockdown
Headteachers are overhauling homeschool timetables so that children get breaks after concerns that they are under too much pressure.
Some pupils do not have time to go to the lavatory because they are spending all day in front of their computer screens, teachers warned.
Heads will spend the Easter holidays overhauling timetables, making lessons shorter and adding breaks to the day.
Jane Prescott, president of the Girls’ Schools Association, said: “In the early days our staff were so enthusiastic they were waiting [online] to deliver their lessons. The children said they didn’t even have time to go to the loo. Normally they would move from classroom to classroom.”
Mrs Prescott, who is also headmistress of Portsmouth High School, will add 15-minute windows between lessons so children can run up the stairs for exercise.
She will spend Easter adding assemblies, competitions and concerts to the timetable.
She said: “These things which go round lessons were lost in the importance of getting home-learning going. But we need to put them back in.”
Lucy Elphinstone, head of Francis Holland School in Sloane Square, said: “Teachers reacted with huge energy and positivity and threw themselves into the programme of teaching online.
“But we have begun to realise how exhausting it is. We tried to follow a full timetable for the first two weeks, but we can’t do that.”
She said over Easter she will “chunk” the timetable into blocks of time, rather than continuing with the school’s normal 35-minute lessons. Work will be set through the day, and there will be whole afternoons on art, music, drama, PE and exercise.
Emma Pattison, head of Croydon High School, said she plans to reduce lessons from one hour to 50 minutes so pupils can upload work, get themselves a drink and have a break. She also plans to drop the last lesson on a Wednesday.
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