Eight days this year when this school is the centre for the eastern islands and some classes do not run. Plus the subject clinic rota for the examination term.
This school is the examination centre for the eastern islands, and there are eight days this year when students arrive from the four feeder schools and the hall, the two large classrooms and most of the staff are given over to it.
The dates are on the term card that went home in the first week and are on the board by the gate. On those days some classes do not run, and the timetable for each day is put up a week beforehand so that students know which lessons they have and which they do not. Grades eight and nine are the grades most affected, because their rooms are the ones nearest the hall and silence is required.
What we ask of our own students on those days. Arrive as normal, use the study hall in any free period rather than the yard, and stay away from the hall corridor entirely. Students sitting papers have travelled from another island that morning and a noisy corridor is a real unfairness to them.
The subject clinics. Through the examination term the clinics run in the study hall on a published rota, one department a night, from half past seven until nine, and any student from any grade may come to any of them. Mathematics on Sunday, sciences on Monday, languages on Tuesday, commerce on Wednesday, and Islam and social studies on Thursday.
A clinic is not a lesson and not extra tuition. It is two teachers in a room answering questions students bring. The students who get the most out of it are the ones who arrive with a specific question and a piece of work, and the ones who get the least are the ones who arrive hoping a topic will be taught again from the beginning. We tell students that at the start of every term and it is worth parents knowing it too.
Study hall hours are extended to Saturday mornings from the beginning of the examination weeks, nine until noon, with a teacher on duty. The room seats ninety and in the fortnight before the papers it is full by four in the afternoon, so a student who wants a place in the evening session should come early rather than at half past seven.
