Our School Day 2022/23

The start time for all students from September 2022 will be 8.30am.

Why is the start time for all students 8.30am?

As we continue to work hard to provide the highest standards of education at Little Lever we are adjusting the start time each morning for all year groups from September 2022. Our Year 11 cohort this year started school at 8.30am and also benefitted from an extended school day. This supported students by giving them enough time to plug their knowledge gaps following periods of self-isolation during the covid pandemic. This proved to be very successful!

The government has also announced a minimum expectation that students should spend 32.5hours per week in school. This comes into force from September 2023.

Having seen the benefits of giving our Year 11 students more time and the announcement from the government that all schools in the country will need to meet the minimum expectation of 32.5 hours from September 2023 we wanted to begin to start this transition from September 2022. The transition will be phased and the additional time will concentrate on the areas that we feel we help benefit our students the most. We will concentrate the additional time on reading, retrieval practice to support students’ retention of knowledge and enrichment opportunities.
Students will have more time in their PREP session each morning to concentrate on improving their knowledge of reading, having time to complete their retrieval practice tasks from subjects across the curriculum, to improve their knowledge of current affairs so they are aware of the world around them and to have weekly assemblies to praise and reward students as well as continuing to remind students of our values and important safeguarding updates.

How will enrichment opportunities work?

We want to give as many opportunities as possible for students to engage in enrichment opportunities from mountain bike riding, canoeing and football writers club to learning a musical instrument, learning a new sport or completing an industry standard first aid course. We want to provide as many opportunities as possible as we know the pandemic reduced the ability for students to actively engage in opportunities like this and we want to ‘kick start’ the opportunities students may have missed out on and find the hidden talents that students do not yet know they have!

Enrichment will be compulsory only for Year 7 and 8

Year 7 and 8 students will have the opportunity to select the enrichment opportunities they would like to take part in for 4 x 5 week periods throughout the year. Students will have the opportunity to attend an enrichment fair where they will be able to find out more about each enrichment opportunity and make their choices.

Students will make their enrichment choices during the first half term of 2022 and will start their enrichment activities after October half term. This means students in Year 7 and 8 will not be attending enrichment on a Thursday until Thursday 3rd November.

From Thursday 3rd November enrichment will take place every Thursday from 2.45pm until 3.30pm during the 4 x 5 week periods of enrichment although there will be lots of other opportunities to engage in sport and the arts on most days of the week. An additional late bus will arrive at the school at 3.30pm every Thursday for those students who would normally catch the bus to get home.
More details regarding the 4 x 5 week periods of enrichment for Year 7 and 8 will be shared with parents and carers when we return to school in September.

Nightclub

Nightclub is an after school supervised space for students from any year groups to complete their retrieval practice (homework) for their low stakes quizzes, to prepare for tomorrow’s sessions or simply to come and read a book. Details are below.