School Day and Lunchtimes

We believe the structure of our school day is an important part of ensuring students achieve highly. We have five 1 hour lessons per day, with optional Enrichment after school too. Students arrive for 8.20am, with lessons starting at 8.25am. Registration occurs in lessons to maximize learning time, and each day there is a Vertical Mentor Group (VMG) tutor period. Assemblies also occur in this VMG period, either in Year groups or in Continents.

For more information about of VMG system look here: http://www.bydales.outwood.com/vertical-mentoring-groups

Lunchtime is for 30 minutes, but split across Period 4 so students have lunches at different times. This ensures students have only a short time to queue, and can sit and eat at tables for the whole session. This also allows Year 7 to have lunch together, without other year groups, something they find very helpful particularly in the early months of joining the school. Our non-teaching Year Learning Managers are always on duty when their group are having lunch, as well as during the day when they visit lessons to check on the progress of students, including those targeted for support and intervention.

Whilst the school day finishes at 2.30pm, learning does not, and students can attend optional Enrichment activities from 2.30-3.30pm, and in some cases beyond. We believe students should have the opportunity to try new sports and interests, or work on catching up in subjects, at a time when there are still fresh. There are usually around 50 activities to choose from each week. On Tuesdays staff have two hours of training time from 2.30 – 4.30pm so there are less Enrichment activities on that evening.

For more information about Enrichment look here: http://www.bydales.outwood.com/enrichment-activities