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Extended School Day


At NET Academies we have an extended school day to offer increased opportunities for pupils to participate in wider cultural activities and sport as well as to provide academic enrichment.

Enrichment is recognised as being very important in helping pupils succeed in later life allowing them discover more about their passions.

By offering these activities as part of a longer day enables us to do this without

Enrichment is recognised as being very important in helping pupils succeed in later life allowing them discover more about their passions.

compromising the core curriculum subjects. A major study from the Sutton Trust found that able pupils who were taken to museums and other educational settings and who read for pleasure, were more likely to do well at GCSE level.1 The Social Mobility Commission has emphasised the need for pupils to have an increased ‘cultural capital.’

Polling from the Policy Exchange found that 38% of state primary schools offered a longer school day, compared with 81% of private primaries.2 They report that parents would overwhelmingly like longer school days to be used for enrichment, sport and academic support.

Academic Enrichment

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) found that pupils can make an additional two months of progress a year by extending the school day.3 In particular the EEF found that schools should use extra time to:

• Explore topics that link to the curriculum and encourage further reading for pleasure.
• Offer 1:1 or small group support.
• Assist pupils with homework.

At NET Academies we have extended the school day by forty minutes (half an hour extension to the school day as well as reducing lunchtimes by ten minutes per day) equating to an additional three hours and twenty minutes additional learning time per week. This gives pupils an extra one hundred and fifteen hours/ 19 days education per year (40 minutes per day x 5 days per week x 36 weeks per year).

The extension of the school day has given us time to create additional provision for the following:

  • Project based learning
  • Individual and group support in learning 
  • Teaching our own school based curriculum- extending the expectations of the National Curriculum

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We maximise ‘prime learning time’ by starting the day earlier at 8:45am to give us three session before lunch.

There are two sessions after lunch as well as having time for additional reading and collective worship at the end of the day which when school finishes at 3:45pm. This enables us to teach core curriculum subjects during the morning, as well as having time in the afternoon to teach a variety of other curriculum subjects. We also teach additional lessons in the core subjects for pupils who are not working at age related expectations.

Prior to the start of the school day each school hosts an optional, before school activity programme from 8:00am. This free provision is an opportunity for children to attend additional lessons in mathematics, English, PE, music, computing, art and science. This potentially provides the pupils with an additional twenty three days of education per year (45 minutes per day x 5 days per week x 36 weeks per year). In some of our school we are also able to offer a free breakfast, sourcing food from the local Food Bank.

The extended school day is further supported by after school, extra-curricular clubs in sport, drama and the arts. In addition to this we offer homework club.

 

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