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Emanuel school is trying to push a horrible new timetable, making assembly, prayers and tutor in the middle of the day instead of the morning, making lunch 10 minutes shorter and start at 12:30 instead of 1:10, so they can make it three periods after lunch, just after we are all tired at the end of the day after lunch. We need to stop this! Also if you get the chance, sign the paper one. We will bring it to school on Wednesday if you didn't sign it on Friday. Below is our letter.

Dear Ms. Emms And Mr. Majsay

We have recently received information about the upcoming changes to the Emanuel School Schedule in 2026. Upon analysing this information, we believe the negatives of this new system vastly outweigh the minor benefits of this new timetable, and we have also identified several key issues that need to be reviewed and addressed accordingly. The following statement details our issues with this new schedule and what we believe should happen and is in our opinion in the best interest of the Emanuel School community.

First of all, we wholeheartedly disagree with the idea of a shorter lunch. We believe that this will lead to children eating less food during lunch, while still having less playtime. Especially in primary school, students prioritise playing and sports over eating, and often rush eating, barely having enough so they can play for as much time as possible, and now with the new system, they may barely be eating at all. Furthermore, there will be a decrease in concentration causing more disruptions in class due to Primary and High school students getting less time to unwind and relax between lessons. Speaking with experience, on Fridays when Primary School students only get 40 minutes of lunch (in the current schedule), they often don’t eat as much so they can still play for a similar amount of time. However, with the new schedule, this will be the situation for every day not just for Primary School but also for High School.

Speaking about lunch, we also do not believe that there should be a split lunch between Primary and High School. It is already quite difficult for the students in Primary and High School to connect with each other or have common activities even when there is a joint lunch, but splitting the lunch will make this problem even more difficult to deal with, only giving a narrow 10 minute window on Mondays only for communication during Lunch, and only 20 minutes during recess on most days. Instead, the concerns could be solved by allowing use of the MPH for any sport by both Primary and High School, and encouraging more use of Pizem. Additionally, this new split lunch could also cause problems with duty, as teachers will need to either be on duty for longer periods of time, causing issues with when they can do classes, or the duties will need to be split up into more time slots, requiring more teachers, and disrupting their breaks.

Another notable point that must be addressed regarding the split lunches, is the fact that several key buildings are placed around all major outside areas available for play. This would mean that both primary and high school students would have to deal with playground noise for a considerable part of their day, disrupting concentration and lessons, and even tests and exams in certain circumstances, as well as administrative and teacher work.

Having 3 periods at the end of the day will also disrupt classes and concentration. Even with the current schedule, students often find it hard to concentrate during the last two periods of the day after multiple lessons, making it harder for teachers to go forward with lessons, and making learning slower and less effective. This issue would only be compounded by the addition of a period at the end of the day, along with a 10 minute shorter lunch allowing less time for students to unwind, causing more and more chaos in the classroom.

Fourthly, we believe that there should be 3 periods between Recess and Lunch for both Primary and High School students as we have now, as it is the perfect amount of time between breaks. 3 periods or 2 hours means that students will not go hungry between the 2 breaks, and at the same time not be full during lunch. With the new schedule however, High School students will still be full and not hungry from recess, while High schoolers will still be hungry.

Additionally, cutting down lunch by 10 minutes for all high school students will interfere with numerous extra curricular activities such as debating or chess, which will now be restricted to 40 minutes. The standard time for these activities that are before or after school are 50 minutes to one hour, yet the numerous extra-curriculars that run each lunchtime will now be provided with less time for all students. We believe 40 minutes is not truly enough time for an adequate session and the previous system of 50 minute lunch-times for the whole school allowed enough time for the many extra-curricular activities to take place.

Lastly, we do not agree with the decision of not having a Period 0, and having prayers, house assembly, tutor, and assembly in Period 3. In most situations, students are late due to other reasons such as a late bus or a medical appointment. Parents often schedule doctors appointments and other important things during Period 0 in an attempt to not miss any lessons and disrupt learning, which will now result in students missing valuable class time instead. In addition, having prayers and other P0 activities in the middle of classes can disrupt the flow of the day, and make it harder for students to focus during class, as well as increasing travel times between classes as students usually will have to go back and put all items back in lockers

Overall, the signers of this Petition believe that these negative aspects of the new schedule overweigh the positives from what information has been relayed to us. Thus, we believe that the schedule should not be changed, or at least a compromise should be made between the two parties. We hope that you keep in mind the opinion of the majority of the students and parents. Thank you for your consideration.

Kind Regards,

Signers of the Petition Against the 2026 Schedule Change