A headteacher says an 11-hour school day could be rolled out across more schools after a £20,000 trial boosted behaviour, homework completion and students’ “sense of belonging”.
Andrew O’Neill, the head of All Saints Catholic College in Notting Hill, west London, ran two non-compulsory extended school provision (ESP) pilots for year 7 and 8 pupils over the summer and autumn terms.
A report on the trials showed missed homework sanctions were down 12 per cent and stars for good behaviour were up 16 per cent for those who took part in the summer pilot.
O’Neill plans to open the initiative up to more students next year, adding: “What excites me most about the ESP is its scalability.
“This is not limited to our school – it has the potential to inspire a new approach to education across the broader community and beyond.”
The 10-week summer term and four-week September pilots saw the school day extended from 7am to 6pm on Monday to Thursday for 120 and 85 pupils respectively.
This included an hour’s homework support after school, as well as extracurricular activities such as sports, drama, cooking, creative arts and oracy. Breakfast and dinner were also provided.
Behaviour improves
The school said the number of stars awarded for good behaviour to students who took part in the summer trial increased from 2,114 to 2,448, or 16 per cent. Stars were just given out during the regular school day, so this wasn’t skewed by the longer hours.
The number of sanctions dished out for missed homework fell by 12 per cent. And a “targeted review” of the 10 students with the highest number of “negative behaviour logs” in the six weeks before the trial revealed a 60 per cent reduction in such incidents during the summer pilot.
The findings were pulled together by the school, and there was no control group – meaning changes could be down to other factors. But the “dramatic improvement” suggests the impact of the policy in engaging children was “fostering a more positive school experience”, the report stated.
Over all the pupils taking part in the autumn 2024 pilot – the 84 per cent who attended twice a week or more throughout – there was a 20 per cent reduction in bad behaviour logs in the four weeks after the programme. This showed the scheme’s “ability to instil lasting behavioural changes”, O’Neill said.
His senior leaders ran the breakfast club, and teachers were paid to oversee the homework club, but activities from 4.30pm to 7pm were largely run by paid external organisations.
The study comes as a government survey of more than 10,000 teachers and school leaders found that a third were considering leaving the profession in the next year, with many citing pupil behaviour as a key reason.
The previous government set out an expectation that schools should provide at least a 32.5-hour week for pupils from this September.
Tories dodged extended day plan
It came after the Conservatives refused to commit to funding a £10 billion plan by Sir Kevan Collins to extend the school day to help children catch up from lost learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The total expenditure on All Saint’s initial pilot was £20,105, including £6,444 on staffing, £5,199 on curriculum costs and £8,452 on catering fees. This equated to 0.22 per cent of the school’s annual £9 million revenue budget.
Parents contributed £4,800 toward the pilot. They paid £10 per week for pupils to access all the activities on offer, but it was free for children on pupil premium.
All Saints plans to “evaluate the long-term feasibility of the current pricing model” and investigate additional funding sources. It will also monitor the workload toll.
Research by the Education Policy Institute think tank concluded that additional time in school was “associated with a small, yet positive, effect on overall attainment in both primary and secondary school”.
At secondary, an additional hour of weekly school time was associated with almost a fifth (0.17) of a grade improvement in one GCSE subject.
O’Neill hopes to run the 11-hour school day from the end of February or early March to all students in year 7 and 8 – with no cap on numbers. These age groups are where issues with “non-attendance” start and “bad habit” start, he said.
But he will also consider extending participation to year 9 and year 10 students for exam preparation. He said: “We have seen 14 years of the decimation of services that help children to thrive. We as schools need to be the vanguard of bringing that back and advocating for children.”
