A teacher has warned that a proposal to standardise the school week across Dundee’s secondaries might not work.
Arthur Forrest is the teachers’ representative on the city council education committee and was speaking during a debate on a scheme that would see all nine schools adopt a 33-period week with identical start and finish and lunch times.
Councillors were being asked to approve a consultation on the plan, but Mr Forrest told them it was important that this be a genuine consultation about whether the scheme should go ahead and not simply about how it should be implemented.
Mr Forrest was also concerned the timetable for carrying out the consultation with affected groups, including parents and the bus firms that run school services, did not include school staff.
However, education director Michael Wood said staff would be involved and he pledged an open and transparent process.
At present, eight of the secondaries have a 30-period week and one uses a 40-period model. The proposed scheme, which has been adopted by several Scottish local authorities, would see all switch to 33 periods, each of 50 minutes.
This would be divided into three days with seven teaching periods and two days with six periods, with the school day ending earlier on those two days.
SNP education convener Liz Fordyce said this would allow a more flexible approach to the organisation of the curriculum and maximise teaching time.
Other benefits are meant to include making it easier for pupils to reach their target of two hours of physical education a week and for them to do vocational courses.
Labour education spokesman Laurie Bidwell said he was concerned by the early finish two days a week. In his Ferry ward that could mean pupils from Grove Academy coming out around the same time as pupils from the adjacent Eastern Primary School.
Mr Wood said this was an issue that would be looked at but he pointed out that in the other local authorities that use the 33-period model the early finishes provided opportunities for pupils to engage in extra-curricular activities.
Liberal Democrat group leader Fraser Macpherson noted that Harris Academy in his West End ward was due to be rebuilt with pupils scheduled to be decanted to the former Rockwell High site from 2013. He received an assurance from the education director that the lunch break at Rockwell would not be held at the same time as the one at nearby St John’s High School.
Richard McCready, Labour councillor for the West End, noted there were already problems for around 40 pupils in the area who relied on buses to travel to and from St John’s. He stressed the need for adequate bus services for all pupils going to the city’s two Roman Catholic secondaries.
Monsignor Ken McCaffrey, the Catholic representative on the education committee, said he wanted to ensure the implications of changes to bus services formed part of the consultation with parents. This was agreed by the director.
The consultations will get under way next month and will involve open meetings for parents at all secondary schools, along with talks with pupil councils, trade union officials, National Express and Strathtay Scottish bus companies, Dundee and Abertay universities and Dundee College.
The results are expected to be reported back to the committee in January and, if approved, the new system could be place for the start of the 2012/13 term in August.