Ten minutes to reset

Your school is considering a four-week timetable trial. On two afternoons each week, the final two lessons would each be shortened by five minutes, creating a ten-minute pause between them. The school day would end at the usual time.

At a meeting attended by pupils and staff, you have been invited to make the case for allowing the trial to go ahead.

Write the text of your speech. You should respond to the concern that the pause would reduce teaching time and explain what evidence the school should use to decide whether to keep, alter or end the arrangement.

You could include:

• how the pause might affect pupils and lessons
• why the loss of teaching time may or may not be justified
• how the four-week trial should be reviewed.

You may also use your own ideas.

Your response will be assessed for communication and organisation, and for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation. The total includes 16 marks for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation.