New Rules Reveal Schools In England To Open 32.5 hours Weekly

Schools in England will be asked to make sure their week is at least 32.5 hours long by September next year, to prevent children missing out on education.
The new rule will be contained in the Schools White Paper, to be published this week, and it is part of a bid to see 90% of pupils leaving primary school having reached expected standards in numeracy and literacy.

While most school weeks in England already cover this length of time, the Department for Education said there are “discrepancies” which could see a pupil who gets 20 minutes’ less teaching time per day losing out on around two weeks of schooling in a year.

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said he wanted strong schools with great teachers for every child.

The 32.5 hour school week is equivalent to 08:45 to 15.15, with the government arguing that a child with a school day shorter by 20 minutes a day would lose two weeks of schooling over the course of a year.

But education unions said the new requirement would make little difference, as most schools already met the threshold.

General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, Geoff Barton, said the Unions are unconvinced by the benefits of introducing a minimum expectation on the length of the school week of 32.5 hours.

He said that the vast majority of schools already met this expectation or came very close to meeting it, and that it was important to understand the reasons that some schools had shorter weeks, such as transport arrangements for rural schools.