Block Scheduling

<p>Who else has block schelduling (4 longer classes a day, finish a year long course in half a year)? Do you like it or not? I like it, it gives me much more freedom scheduling wise, although it does make life a little more hectic in those core classes, espessially when you get ALL of them in one semester like me.</p>

<p>We have 8 periods a day (including lunch). I think it's terrible.</p>

<p>I have like 4 tests on average per week.</p>

<p>My kids are at a high school with block scheduling. I do not like it. For math and foreign languages, where you build upon what you learned before, it is very hard to get back up to speed. My daughter is in Spanish III and does not remember Spanish II. I initially thought it would good for my ADHD son who has to organize for 4 classes as opposed to 6 - 8, but the learning via firehose is not easy for someone with ADHD either. I regret not moving to another school district before high school started.</p>

<p>Block scheduling would kill me. I only get about twenty minutes of productivity in my classes, and they're fourty five minutes long.. >.></p>

<p>My school has a weird block scheduling system. We have 8 classes per semester, but only two block days per week. So Monday, Tuesday, and Friday we have all 8 classes. On Wednesday we have a block day with periods 1,3,5, and 7. Thursday is the same with 2,4,6,8. This is the first year my school has implemented this schedule, and I have to say that I like it much better than the prior one in which we had each class everyday and could only take 7 classes.</p>

<p>I think finishing a yearlong course in one semester is a terrible system for high-schools, but that's just my 2 cents. Like someone above me said, it would be very difficult to retain a year of math/foreign language or any class for that matter if you go a semester without it.</p>

<p>The reason I like it is because at a school of 3200 with many many class offerings, it gives me a lot of options to go explore new things of get really in depth in a particular subject. I think it will also prepare me for college much better because of the increased workload. The only problem, as I previously stated, is that I have every core class this semester and my grades are sliding a little bit even though I am working twice as hard as I ever have before.</p>

<p>9 periods, 8-3:30 182 days</p>

<p>PWNZ.</p>

<p>9!!! WOW. How could you ever get anything done or take a test? How long are your classes like half an hour?</p>

<p>My school has block scheduling, but we switch off every day. For example, MWF would be 2,4,6,8 and T,Th would be 1,3,5,7. This means that classes are still year long. I loved this schedule until I was a senior and my counselor told me I needed three more classes, but there really weren't any more I was interested in. The only downside is that most of my teachers either try to go super fast in teaching material for some reason, or they go incredibly so and only teach 25 min in a 90 min block.</p>

<p>lulz made a typo</p>

<p>8-3:00 p.m lol</p>

<p>42-43 avg min. per period</p>

<p>one of them includes lunch</p>

<p>9 pds. a day, 182-183 days or something a year</p>

<p>2 week winter vac.</p>

<p>pwnzorz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>

<p>^ Oh ok so one is lunch. That makes more sense now.</p>

<p>Yes I have noticed some teachers do have trouble managing time on block days.</p>

<p>Sometimes on the 90 minute block days we just end up with a 20 minute study hall at the and of the period because the teacher doesn't even know what to do anymore.</p>

<p>my school has ten periods in the day, each 45 minuets long with the exception of lunch, which is 30 minuets long. haha. Our periods go like this:</p>

<p>Daily:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Lunch A / 6, Lunch B / 7, Lunch C / 8, 9, 10.
Every Wednesday:
Activity, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Lunch A / 6, Lunch B / 7, Lunch C / 8, 9, 10.</p>

<p>so then our classes are shortened to thirty minuets each and a twenty five minuet lunch so we can have mentoring/clubs.</p>

<p>I would perfer a block schedule. haha. I would actually learn something!</p>

<p>^that wed. day happens once a quarter for us...</p>

<p>I have blocked scheduling... but each class is every other day.</p>

<p>I had block scheduling in HS. We had 4 blocks 82 min + 30 min for lunch worked in there. I went to a smaller rural-suburb HS. I really enjoyed how it worked out. It allowed for much better focus in the classes you were in each semester. Worked out to be 2-3 "core" and 1-2 elective/supporting classes. </p>

<p>Lab classes were given much more time to get in-depth in the topic while worrying about when to clean-up. I found that having 82 min in the humanity classes allows for more discussion as well. </p>

<p>Have 4 classes/semester also lets you only suffer your least fav classes 1/2 a year. I thought APs were going to be annoying with this kind of schedule but they really weren't. My sr. year I had AP Bio and Eng Lit during my fall semester. Come spring time, both classes were having weekly review sessions. I ended up with a 5 and a 4, just above average for the classes. </p>

<p>I felt these blocks of intensive scheduling really helped prep me for college with 5 classes and a lab per week/semester.</p>

<p>Yeah we have block scheduling. </p>

<p>4 periods/day - 1 1/2 hrs. each. </p>

<p>8-2:20</p>

<p>We have block scheduling....</p>

<p>Except year-long classes happen... year-long. </p>

<p>It limits the amount of classes one can take, so the top students end up with many classes at a lot faster pace than the 8 classes/year-long schedule. Just for example, I'm doing Spanish I-AP Spanish at the college level this year. This means that if you're doing 1 class of Spanish year-long, I'm taking Spanish 4 or more times faster than you are. </p>

<p>I wish we had 8 classes a year and they were all year-long. Then I could take easy courses (all non-college/AP courses) online and I could take 8 APs a year.</p>

<p>If you take "All AP's" without overloading (Which is VERY hard to get permission to do) you would only get 4 APs a year. You couldn't even graduate on time!</p>

<p>We have block scheduling, and I love it. Four 90-minute classes a day, which I think is an almost perfect time length-- long enough for you to really learn and get in-depth on things, but not so long that you get bored and distracted. What makes our block scheduling different, though, is that many classes are offered both as 4x4 (block/ semester) and A-Day/ B-Day (year-long). So almost no one chooses to take languages or AP's in one semester, because taking them year long is so much easier since you don't forget what you learned last year, or forget everything before the AP exam in the spring. It's pretty rare to find someone who takes all their classes on 4x4 (four different classes each semester.) There also aren't many who take all their classes A-Day/B-Day (every single class year round.) Most people have a mixture-- this year I have four A-Day/B-day and four 4x4, and I think it's going really well. The block scheduling is well-liked by pretty much everyone. Another great thing about it is that if you want to double-up on something (like take two math or science classes in one year to get ahead) it's not a problem at all. I'd say around 60% of people end up doing it at least once before they graduate. I think my school has it set up pretty well.</p>

<p>I love how Block scheduling allows you to "double up" in math/science. But it's really, really inconvenient when it comes to AP classes. If the AP class is in first semester, then you will have a long gap between the end of class and May. However, if the AP class is in the second semester, teachers often struggle fitting the entire curriculum in before the AP test. But all in all, I would much prefer Block scheduling. I think the fact that one would have to deal with fewer classes at any given time seals the deal for me.</p>

<p>At my S's school, which has block scheduling, most of the AP classes are linked with an Honors prerequisite class, to effectively make it a two-semester course (equal to 2 full years). To take AP European History, you have to take Honors World History. To take AP Calculus, you have to take Honors Pre-Calculus, etc... Only the AP portion of the two courses gets honors credit though. The AP portion of the class is 2nd and 3rd quarter, and these are the quarters you get honors credit for. 1st and 4th quarters counts as regular classes. This does make it difficult to take many AP classes.</p>

<pre><code>A few APs are not linked. One or two are taught only in the fall, and the teacher holds weekly review sessions after school in the spring to keep the kids on top of things. Calc BC is only offered in the spring, and it moves FAST.
</code></pre>

<p>Block scheduling works well for some kids, not for others. My youngest S (still in middle school) has ADHD, and I am wondering whether having less classes to concentrate will help him, or whether they will move too fast for him ....</p>