LESSON 4 PRACTICE

SCHOOL'S SCHEDULE 

In the fourth practice we had to create a school schedule, taking into account the subjects, the times and the deans in accordance with the law.
This practice was my favorite, we organized very well to do it and it seemed super interesting and fun to create our own schedule. I liked it a lot because I felt that I was the director of the center and had to write the schedule for the students and teachers.

1. - What are the applicable school scheduling regulations?

The regulations that are applicable to school scheduling are the following:

• The general opening hours of the centre and the school timetable will be proposed by the management team. Moreover, the teachers’ board and the school board must be informed. Finally they will be approved by the school management.

• The head of studies will draw up the personal schedule of the teaching staff, according to the criteria approved by the teacher’s board.

• The general timetable of the centre must respond to the needs of its students and consider the environmental conditions.

• The school will be open from October to May from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m . June and September, students' school activities will take place generally in the morning, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

• The weekly timetable for each of the school year must have 25 hours, distributed from Monday to Friday, including official breaks.

• School day scheduling becomes more flexible, with time blocks between 45 and 60 min. Schools' autonomy also allows educational centres to implement pedagogical innovation projects, teach interdisciplinary contents, and organise team tasks.

• Each school will establish a daily break in the morning of 30 minutes. In the case of Second Cycle Infant Education students, there will be breaks both in the morning and in the afternoon, lasting 45 minutes a day in total. Breaks must be during the central hours.

• Break between the morning and afternoon, minimum duration of 1 hour and 30 minutes.

• The dining service available to students must run for at least 1 hour and 30 minutes.

• The number of hours assigned to the block of core areas (Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Spanish Language and Literature, Mathematics and First Foreign Language) has to be at least 11 hours and 15 minutes per week in each school year.

• The number of hours assigned to the blocks that can be regulated by each regional government (Valencian, Language and Literature) and to the specific areas (Physical Education, Religion / Social and Civic Values, Artistic Education) has to be at least 7 hours and 45 minutes.

• The number of hours assigned to the core areas (Valencian Language and Literature, Spanish Language and Literature and Mathematics) can not be less than 3 hours.

• For each year, schools have 3 hours and 30 minutes per week they can organise as they see fit.

• Both Valencian Language and Literature and Spanish Language and Literature should be assigned the same number of total hours each year.

• Each form teacher will be assigned weekly tutoring hours, of which students will be informed.

• The specific school day planning will form part of the Educational Project and the Annual General Programme. Therefore, both documents must take into account the social, personal or academic needs of students.

• Timetable changes requested by the school for the following year will be approved before the end of the school year. The school management will be responsible for sending the school board's favorable report to the regional/provincial authorities.

2. - Who is in charge of drawing up the schedules? Who approves them?

The Management Team is in charge of drawing up the school timetable. However, The Teachers Board and The School Board must be informed of this action before finally passing the information along to The School Management so that he can approve this schedule.

3. - What bodies can be consulted?

The bodies that can be consulted are The Teachers Board and The School Board to make sure that they agree with the proposition of The Management Team.

4. - How many hours are assigned to the most important subjects?

The number of hours assigned to the block of core areas ( Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Spanish Language and Literature, Mathematics and First Foreign Language) has to be at least 11 hours and 15 minutes per week in each school year.

5. - What is the number of hours assigned to core areas?

The number of hours assigned to the core areas has to be a minimum of 3 hours.

6. - Based on the previous questions, make a diagram of the school timetable.

Here is our explanation to why we created the school timetable this way:

On Monday and Friday we aimed at making sure that students had subjects that didn’t require a lot of effort as they most likely wouldn’t be able to concentrate.

We also respected the hours that each subject had to be taught so that they had enough knowledge of each subject depending on what the law says is best for the students. These rules are observed in the development of our first question.

We have also followed the rules for the school break needing to be at least 30 minutes between the morning and afternoon. Moreover, we made sure that the lunch break was a minimum of 1 hour and 30 minutes, in our case, 2 hours and 15 minutes.

We have also made, a non-split schedule because it has become more popular in most of the schools nowadays. On the non-split day schedule we have made a few changes in respect to the split one in order to change the core subjects from the end of the day because children have been at the school since 9 o’clock and they are  tired. Moreover, we have put subjects like Arts or Religion at the end of the day. We also have included a second break to insure that they relax after two hard core subjects