Due to Covid and the struggles of juggling 9am and 3pm drop offs and pick ups, the idea of a standard school day could be shifting.
NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet called current school hours dated earlier this week, hinting “better ways of doing things” could be afoot.
However, some schools have already adapted their supervision and schooling hours.
St Luke’s Catholic College, based in the north west Sydney suburb of Marsden Park, already offers care from 6.30am to 6pm, outside their primary school hours which operate from 8.15am to 2.30pm. The afterschool program also offers a range of structured master classes which include dance, basketball, robotics, music and a science club.
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Parents of primary-school children can also collect the students from noon on Friday, which principal Greg Miller said has been a particular popular choice for parents.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, St Luke’s principal, Greg Miller said that parents enjoyed “that they have choice,” especially the early Friday pick-up.
“Some parents, particularly in the K-6 arrangement, really like the option of being able to pick them up at midday [on Friday] and scoot away for the weekend,” he said.
“Some build their working day around it. Nearly half of our working parents have to travel more than 30 km to get to work, so the extended day suits them from that perspective.”
St Lukes also allow their senior high school students to start classes at 10am on three mornings a week, however they can also opt in for supervised study sessions which begin at 8.30am. The later start times were based on research that teenage body clocks skew towards later bed times. The research even sparked new California laws in 2019 which mandated that middle schools (Year 6 to 8) begin no earlier than 8am, and high schools (Year 9 to 12) 8.30am.
This comes as the Premier revealed that trials were already underway which experiment with earlier starts.
“The school hours of nine till three, that was set up at a very different time in life … the world in the 1950s is very different from the world we live in today,” he said on Monday.
“We as a government will be looking always at better ways of doing things, of thinking outside the box and striking new directions moving forward.”
Some of these schools include Edmund Rice College, an independent Catholic boys school in West Wollongong, starts its school day at 8am and finishes at 2.05pm and Merrylands East Public School in southwest Sydney which has operated from 8am to 1.15pm for more than 10 years, with students finishing classes before their lunch break.
Previously speaking to news.com.au, the principal for Edmund Rice College, Stephen Gough, said this allowed the school to “maximise our day and learning opportunities”.
“Every educator knows some of your best learning happens earlier in the day,” he said.
“For those students who want to get extra help and support we have a formalised homework club and many boys access that, not only to get access to their teachers, but also the senior students.”
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Part of the rational for altering school hours also coincided with the launch of a Women’s Economic Opportunity Review Panel by the NSW Government to find new ways to increase women’s participation in the workforce.
“When you talk to women, they’ll often talk about the hard cut off at three o’clock. We need to look at different opportunities to make sure they can thrive,” said the Minister for Women, Bronnie Taylor.
In 2016, one of WA’s top private schools, Presbyterian Ladies’ College announced plans to extend their opening hours from 7am to 7pm in order to support working parents, in particular women.
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