A group of high school students talk and wait for the bell to ring during the “lanchinho” 9 minute break between second and third period. [by Dr. Cristina Meier]
by Micah Greve
Pan American Christian Academy (PACA), an international school in São Paulo, Brazil, changed their bell schedule after the first week of school to give students more time to get to their classes, providing them the whole class period to learn and study.
The new bell schedule gives students an extra minute to get to their classes before the bell rings, except for the first period. In between most classes, students now have four to five minutes to get from one side of campus to the other.
Mr. Ben Clark, a high school English teacher who works at PACA and is also the high school coordinator, explained why he changed the bell schedule.
“I noticed that some students and teachers who have classes further away had consistent difficulty in arriving to some classes on time,” said Clark.
He also said that he considered other bell schedules, but he decided on this one because it “kept the priority of our learning time, but allowed one more minute in between classes.” Clark said.
Malachi Greve, a student in the eighth grade class at PACA, who recently returned to PACA after a six month furlough in the United States, recognized the value of the additional time given with this new schedule.
“To get to Special Portuguese, I have to go far away from my classroom to get to another classroom. To get to Art, I have to go up to the high school area and back down to art class,” said Greve, “I get more time in between the class periods.”
Daniel Peloso, another eighth grade student at PACA who participates in after school sports and plays the bass in the middle school worship team, has seen an improvement in the time for him to get to all his morning classes.
“I think it worked especially in between fourth and fifth periods to get to class,” said Peloso.
In between these periods, the eighth grade students have to get to art class. So these students are saying that the bell schedule is helping them get to their classrooms on time and not get as many tardies as before.
Peloso also said that the teachers can get to their classes faster and organize their classroom so that the students can have a full period of 45 minutes learning instead of about 42 or 43 minutes of class time.
The initial purpose of the bell schedule seems to be working, because there are less tardies being given out all over PACA in the past few weeks.
