Classes will seem longer for Foothills Composite High School students as they return to in-school learning on Sept. 2 for the first time since mid March.
That’s because they are.
The school has gone from a two-semester per year system to a quarterly-semester system to assist in keeping students and staff safe from COVID-19.
“Our division (Foothills School Division) is encouraging us to focus on creating cohorts to the best of our ability,” Foothills Comp president Vince Hunter said. “The kids will be travelling less in the hallways, they aren’t in so many physical spaces in the school.
“The kids will have the same timetable they chose that they registered for at the end of the school year, it’s just a quarterly system.”
Hunter added establishing the smaller cohorts at the school would allow for easier contact tracing if a student did come down with COVID-19.
Enrolment at the Comp is projected at around 1,300 students.
The quarterly-system has students taking two classes each semester — one in the morning and one in the afternoon. They still have the same amount of class time as they had in the previous two-semester system.
Final exams would take in place November, January, April and June for the 2020-21 school.
The Comp was a quarterly-system prior to switching to a two-semester system in the early 2000s.
The classes will be approximately two hours each. There are breaks scheduled in each session. Previously classes were less than an hour.
Grade 12 student Raina Walker had mixed feelings about the quarterly system.
“For the most part it will be fine, but it will be different,” she said. “I don’t think I can pay full attention for two straight hours in a single classroom.
“But I can figure things out if I have to.”
She said she likes the fact the semester are shorter, but it could have its pitfalls.
“I think it’s good because you get thinks done faster,” said Walker, who is an 80-per-cent-average student. “But with that you have people who can’t keep up and don’t learn as fast. It’s a lot easier to fall behind.
“But if you keep up with it, I feel it will be better for everybody.”
Hunter said teachers are going to have to be creative in order to keep students' attention for the longer time period.
They can get guidance from their peers teaching at the elementary level.
Hunter said other than a music or physical education class, elementary school teachers often have the same students for the majority of the day.
“What (elementary) teachers do is they create these mini-lessons within a large lesson, through that they are able to keep the students’ attention,” Hunter said. “If we just stand there and lecture students and hand out worksheets, it’s going to be terrible.”
He said Comp staff discussed using elementary school strategies at the high school level for the past few years.
Cynthia Tarasoff, a Foothills math teacher, was at the Comp when it was quarterly-semester school.
“I think under the circumstances moving to the quarter-system is a good move considering the situation the world finds itself in right now,” she said.
Students and teachers will be able to adjust to the new format.
“Having taught under the quarterly-system before, students are going to model the attitude of the teacher,” Tarasoff said. “The teaching professions lends itself to being adaptable… Teachers will find a way to keep the students engaged, safe and make it work in the timeframe that we have.”
She said teachers were able to pivot in March when they had to teach online due to in-class school being stopped due to COVID.
She added while students do have longer class times and a shorter semester, they have two classes to focus on rather than four in the former two-semester format.
Tarasoff plans to have her lessons online to help students throughout the semester.
Hunter said Comp staff discussed using elementary school strategies at the high school level for the past few years.
Hunter said continued diligence on student attendance is a high priority.
If a student misses school due to sports, sickness or other concerns he or she can update classwork online.
“A student can access what they are missing through the virtual world,” he said.
The use of the Comp’s Hub@Home program could also be used if a student is expected to miss a number of classes.
Several Edmonton schools have also switched to the quarterly system for the 2020-21 school year.
Hunter said the quarterly-semester system will be re-evaluated at the end of the school year.
