31 Oct 2023
Dear Parents and Carers,
As of 2024, year 11 and 12 will be required to attend school between 8.50am – 3.00pm. The Extension classes will be held in the morning within the 7.45 am time slot, unless they coordinated at a different time with their teacher.
We acknowledge that there may be parents and students that will not agree with these changes. However, we have decided to go down this path for the following reasons.
- The period zeroes were implemented at least 20 years ago. Society and teenagers have changed dramatically – young people are simply not getting up early enough.
- Most of the year 12 students are NOT attending period 0 classes. This means that there is many hours of curriculum lost.
- When staff are absent, we are not able to cover these lessons with a casual - leading to certain curriculum loss.
- Staff need to back track continuously to ensure the curriculum is covered, resulting in a back log of learning and less time to revise.
- Loss of curriculum hours means that the students are not performing as well as they can, both at an individual level and a collective level.
- When the cohort performs collectively well, then all students benefit from this when it comes to scaling.
- Having the senior school present in the school will further enhance the school community culture we espouse at BHS.
We understand that these changes may impose on:
- Organised tutoring
- Work commitments
- Family commitments and importantly
- DOWN Time for our students including social activities before coming home in the afternoon.
However, we cannot justify the amount of teaching time that is not used productively.
Be assured that we have discussed this at executive level many, times since returning to school from online learning at home, trying to find a solution but to no avail.
Please note we are in the process of developing and implementing procedures to support year 12 and make this work. With regards to public transport we are liaising to ensure there are enough timely buses on route.
Essentially the purpose of the change is to ensure our students have optimum time with their teacher. Our purpose will always be to support student learning and strive to ensure that their education at Blakehurst high School leads to many tertiary education and life opportunities as possible.
Please contact me if need be
Yours in service,
Sophie Kapsimalis
Principal