The morning session starts at ten to seven and the afternoon at ten to one. Both move by ten minutes, and here is exactly why the bell cannot be flexible.
From the start of next term the morning session runs from ten to seven until twenty past twelve, and the afternoon session from ten to one until twenty past five. Both are ten minutes earlier than this term.
The reason is the handover. At the change of session, one thousand and forty children leave this building and six hundred arrive, through the same gate, in the same half hour. Ten minutes of additional clearance between the two sessions makes that handover work, and the alternative was taking ten minutes off the afternoon session, which nobody wanted.
How the handover now runs, since the courtyard was covered. The arriving session waits in the covered area until the departing session has cleared the gate. Staff are on both sides. Parents collecting from the morning session should be at the gate rather than inside the yard, and parents delivering for the afternoon should use the second gate on Dhaharaa Magu, which halves the crowd at the main one.
Why the bell is strict, since this is the thing families find hardest. The afternoon session needs the rooms at ten to one. A morning class that runs over by ten minutes takes the first lesson away from a nine year old who has nowhere else to be. There is no spare room in this building. Every teacher here has been asked to finish on the bell and does.
The same arithmetic applies to collection. A child not collected from the afternoon session waits in the covered courtyard with a member of staff until six, which is provided for and used by about forty children every day. A child not collected from the morning session waits in the office. Neither child is ever left outside a gate.
Morning clubs for grades one to five are unaffected and still run from eleven until half past twelve. Walking groups are unaffected. The boats and buses that some families use will need checking against the new times, and the office will print a card with both sets of times for anybody who asks.
