German schools

The school day in Germany starts at 7.45am and for primary school children (age seven in the first year) it finishes at either 11.45am or 12.35pm. For higher years it then goes up to a 2.10pm finish.

Lunch break in Germany (also called big break) is 25 minutes.

Between every lesson there is either a five minute or 15 minute (11am usually) break.

If you do your maths that equates to a maximum of six lessons, each 45 minutes long.

It always amazes me that studies show that England is behind but nobody takes any interest in asking the other countries how they do it.

Education should NOT ever be controlled by party political little Napoleons and changed according to whatever party manifesto is the current flavour of the month!

Educating children means investing in our future as well as theirs and should never, ever be meddled with by people who have got either no experience of real life in schools or live on private school planet with shares in Ofsted.

What is the use of a ten-hour day for children who get messed up by ever-changing methods, programmes, guidelines and all the other unnecessary improvements when they still can’t spell their address at age 14?

Maybe the next Government’s education minister will tell us to go back to letters and numbers or maybe we are heading for a Brave New World. All the same for the kids who have to suffer I suppose . . . but hail to the loads of teachers I know who still TEACH well and with pride and manage to ignore Governments past and present.

Angie Parker

Chester Avenue

Lancing

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