The 7-Day Block Schedule
The Ostrava International School
‘‘The pandemic forced us to look closely at how we deliver the curriculum, motivate student learning, and raise our awareness of wellbeing for both the learner and educator. When we went back to our classrooms, we arrived with a heightened sense of what was possible, if only we would take some brave steps to get there.’’ Author: Brett Gray, Director of Ostrava International School, the first authorized IB Continuum School in the Czech Republic.
First step: Cut Curricular Content
Across the school, almost without exception, teachers told me that there were areas of content that were outdated, inapplicable, and holding them back from introducing topics of greater relevance. Like most schools, we had simply been squeezing in additional content as it came along, without removing content to provide more breathing room for deeper understandings, skills development, collaboration, planning time, the meaningful introduction of new technologies. So, I asked my staff for the 2021-2022 academic year to try, if possible, to cut up to 20% of the least useful content in their subject areas, and see if they missed it at the end of June.
Second step: Rationalise the schedule, consider IB expectations
We were surprised to discover that our MYP and DP students had, on average, 160% percent more lesson time than the IB required minimum and 120% more than the IB recommendation. Why? Not only were we racing to fulfill the expectations of an over-bloated curriculum, but we had been stuck trying to cram lots of 45-minute lessons into a five-day cycle called Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We realised that we were needlessly forcing our students and staff to endure long days at school with too many lessons. Another issue was that often, state holidays, whole school events, and PD days tended to fall on Fridays and Mondays and that in our traditional schedule, those lost lessons would accumulate over the course of the year to the point where some subjects ended up with considerably less time.
Step three: Create a schedule that allows for blocks of teaching, and is not thrown off track by holidays, school events and PD days
Essentially, we took the IB recommended number of hours, spread that over the course of the year, and determined the ideal number of days in a “cycle”. In our case, that number is seven. It does not mean that we work seven days a week, as some staff, to my surprise, had originally feared. It works like this:
Perhaps Thursday is Day 1, Friday is Day 2, the following Monday is Day 3, Tuesday is Day 4, Wednesday is Day 5, Thursday is Day 6, Friday is Day 7, and then the following Monday is Day 1 again, and so on.
When a holiday, school event day, or PD pops up, that schedule simply jumps over it and continues without interruption. So, for example, if Wednesday is Day 4, and Thursday is a state holiday, then Friday will be Day 5. In this way, the number of lost lessons and Days is minimised to almost zero, the balance among the subjects is maintained, and staff can much better plan out their lessons for the entire year. They know, for example, that in their subject they have 5 lessons per cycle, and that there are 23 full cycles during the year.
This has also allowed us to have a schedule that finishes for the entire school before 15:00, so that students can participate in clubs, or go home. The only exceptions are DP students with high-level courses and some specialised mother-tongue lessons.
Find out more about learning at TOIS: www.tois.world
