Students’ days are dictated by their schedule, and this year, the Hockaday School hopes their newly instituted schedule will allow students to have a good day every day. After 20 years with the same schedule, Hockaday made a change, altering the number of class periods and means of rotation.
“On our previous schedule, for example, in Upper School, students had four class periods a day on a six-day rotation,” Hockaday’s Eugene McDermott Head of School, Dr. Laura Leathers said. “This year, they have three classes a day on a seven-day rotation, and each class is slightly longer at 100 minutes.”
The main goal of this change is to promote students’ well-being, helping them to thrive in the classroom.
“We hope this reduces the stress on students and allows teachers to go deeper into their subject area during each class period,” Leathers said.
To create this new schedule, Hockaday worked with a management company that St. Mark’s previously consulted, as well as working with students and faculty to create an ideal system.
“This project included several significant pieces including data gathering, interviews, surveys and campus visits,” Leathers said.
But improving student performance in class was not the sole objective; Hockaday also hopes the news schedule will increase student opportunities outside of the classroom.
“We wanted to adopt divisional schedules that allow us to expand our interdisciplinary and interdivisional work and create opportunities for all-school community time,” Leathers said. “We are excited to modify our daily schedules to allow us to advance some of the goals we’ve identified as a school.”
Similar to the schedule change at 10600 Preston several years ago, Hockaday hopes to free up time for students to engage in their community through clubs, sports, and other extracurriculars.
