Su's fourth Pontefract article

Now that we are going towards the end of winter term and spring term is near, the question that hasn’t yet been answered arises once more. 

This question is so important that it requires the entire school, both students and faculty, to sit down and ponder carefully in order to find the answer: should we keep the new schedule for spring term (and on) or not? 

In this article we will look at the quotes from students and faculty, whose identity is hidden to create a more comfortable for people to state their opinion, about the negative side of the new schedule. Undeniably, we have to thank and appreciate the effort that many faculties have put in creating the new schedule. However, for a body of 391 students, there will be an inevitable discrepancy in the opinions about the schedule.

The most common complaint about the schedule is its effect on day students. One day student commented: “I have many mornings when I come into class ready for a nap. I might as well wear pajamas to class because of this schedule! Especially being a day student, you don't get anywhere as much sleep as a student living on campus. This is a major disappointment to me and some of my fellow day student friends. This idea should be thought over with more consideration of people from all points of view next time. Thank you”. 

Some day students have members in the family that have to go to school early, and the day student has to go too for convenience. Therefore, the amount of sleep some day students have don’t increase, but they get tired by waiting half an hour more before class starts, stretching their day unnecessarily.

Beside the conflict between day students and the schedule, some students complained that the new schedule is too routine and boring in the order of blocks. One student commented: “The order of the classes gets routine and extremely boring. I need variety.” Before the new schedule was released, some students complained that they could not remember the blocks, and this element was also brought into the discussion of the schedule committee. 

However, now some students feel that the new schedule is mundane with its alphabetical order. People will always know what class will come next every week, and this might have a negative effect on students’ performance in class.

Also, Pomfret has to consider what direction it plans to head toward as a school. By reducing one full block, five minutes of each classes and all the Saturday classes, we have cut down a lot of academic time. One student commented: “No schedule is perfect; students are missing the 8th block (a free for most and used for study and/or play and relaxation)”, another student said: “It occupied my valuable H block, we should have eight blocks, especially for those who needs to take all eight courses”. This need for more time to study has some crazy logic to it. 

Pomfret has numerous electives, including art courses, to offer. By reducing one block, most of the students can’t experience the wide array of interesting and awesome electives  because they are usually full with core courses. Because of this, we may consider the possibility of recovering the 8^th block.

There are other minors complain about the schedule too, like some people talks about the unreasonable break on Wednesday, which is already a half day. “Why is the break on wendsday and not, for example, on Thursday?” one student questioned. Others don’t like the too many meeting blocks: “During the meeting blocks teachers always have meetings, so I can't meet with them.” And also: “the new schedule was supposed to create more time for meeting blocks; I find is hasn't achieved that objective; we still can't even find time to meet as advisee groups.”

The schedule is and will still be a topic open for debate for a long time before we can decide to keep it or not. Until then, we have to make a lot of surveys to find out how people feel about the new schedule