In this blog post I will be researching and talking about what other schools do for breaks during the school day and how does it affect their students?
To start off almost every country around the world does something a little bit different from each other. One of country’s with the most breaks during the school day is Finland. They have a very unique school day. What they do is every 45 mins of learning they do, the students get 15 mins of play or recess, their school day starts around 8-9am and ends around 2pm. The Finnish people have also done a lot of research about good ages to start school. For example kids do not start school until age 7 and everything before that is not necessary to attend.{1} Because school days start later at 8-9am the students have more time in the mornings to eat sleep in a little bit more, and just be overall more relaxed. They also have a very early end of day dismissal, at 1:30 and usually only get 10-20 mins of homework. {2} Having a break every so often helps students keep their attention fully focused on the things that they are learning. {3} In Finnish schools students are exited to go to school, part of that is what I talked about earlier but the other part is that that their class rooms feel more like a second home. This is because the class has beanbag chairs, where when there is laughter in class it’s not considered a distraction, it’s considered a way of learning. To start off almost every country around the world does something a little bit different from each other. One of country’s with the most breaks during the school day is Finland. They have a very unique school day. What they do is every 45 mins of learning they do, the students get 15 mins of play or recess, their school day starts around 8-9am and ends around 2pm. The Finnish people have also done a lot of research about good ages to start school. For example kids do not start school until age 7 and everything before that is not necessary to attend.{1} Because school days start later at 8-9am the students have more time in the mornings to eat sleep in a little bit more, and just be overall more relaxed. They also have a very early end of day dismissal, at 1:30 and usually only get 10-20 mins of homework. {2} Having a break every so often helps students keep their attention fully focused on the things that they are learning. {3} In Finnish schools students are exited to go to school, part of that is what I talked about earlier but the other part is that that their class rooms feel more like a second home. This is because the class has beanbag chairs, where when there is laughter in class it’s not considered a distraction, it’s considered a way of learning.
In Finnish schools there are also no rushed drills, no looming tests, and no fear of falling behind. {4} There are also different countries around the world who have changed or modified the way they run their schools. Not everyone will agree with the way other countries are modifying their school systems but they are still trying. Some examples would be, the UK, they are starting there school days a little bit later, India, they make teachers keep a certain amount of distance between the students and teachers and any conversations that they have are mainly about schoolwork, some of the other countries are, Thailand, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Philippines, and of course Finland.{5}
{1} – 27 Surprising Finnish Education System Facts and Statistics
{2} – Inside Finland’s Education System: A Child-First Model of Learning and Balance
{3} – The simple strength of Finnish education – thisisFINLAND
Hi Nicola, This was a very great post, and I enjoyed reading it. I loved the topic you picked and think it’s very important to address it and figure out why they happen so often. One thing that I think you could improve on is the organization of the post. Personally, I found it a little challenging finding where I left off reading because it was in one huge paragraph. and it was also a little repetitive. Overall, I loved your post and found it very informative!