For the last 4 weeks of Term 1, we trialled a shortened lunchtime - cutting lunch by 10 mins and finishing at 3.05pm.

There were several reasons for this trial. While many students were happy to get involved with an activity, have lunch and catch up with friends or amble around the school grounds, other students were finding the present lunchtime (1.25pm - 2.15pm) too long with 'nothing to do'. Often this led to silly behaviour on and off the grounds and an unsettled last period of the day.

We were aware that the shortened lunchtime would impact on lunchtime activities and we wanted to see what that looked like. We also knew that the earlier finish and longer wait would be challenging for students catching the bus, and the bus companies had already told us that they needed a term's notice of any change in the timetable for them to change their schedule.

As it was, there have been positives and negatives so far, but it is difficult to get a full picture of the impact because of the rostering home of students and the decreased number of teachers.

We intend to continue the trial into Term 2, when we have the full school back on deck. We welcome feedback from our school community about the trial and whether we make this a permanent change. We invite you to complete the short survey (link here).