School will start a little earlier next year for students at Robert Moore School in Fort Frances.

Classes will start at 8:30 a.m. but end at 2:50 p.m.

Co-principal Kerri Tolen says part of it is to keep students more engaged with their learning.

“We have just noticed that a lot of kids are awfully tired by the afternoon, like our third block. We were trying to think how we could optimize the learning time for them because everybody seems a bit fresher in the morning. And so, (we) then thought about looking at the times because we do have the longest day in the board and looking at what other schools do,” says Tolen.

“So the kids, instead of coming, having that kind of waiting chunk in the morning, will just come into the school, which most kids are already at school by 8:30 a.m., We’ll just go into their classrooms and then begin their instruction,” says co-principal Char Bliss.

“We just felt that this was a change that could be good for kids,” says Tolen.

The amount of instruction of 300 minutes remains the same.

Nutrition breaks, now 45 minutes long, will reduce to 40, the length they were before the pandemic.

“Recesses are the same. Forty minutes is the standard nutritional break, and there are two. So, students do get the same amount of outside time,” says Bliss. “So, we don’t want parents to be concerned that we’ve taken away any recess time.”

The nutrition breaks were increased to 45 minutes during the pandemic because of the need to stagger recesses when cohorting was necessary.

Bus schedules and Kiss and Ride times change to reflect the new school schedule.

“There’s a procedure that we had to follow,” says Bliss. “And going through that procedure that involved talking to our school council, our supervisor, transportation because we do share school buses with another board as well.”

School officials also outlined their plans with the Rainy River District Social Services Administration Board as its Tall Oaks Atelier manages the pre- and after-school programming.

Two other schools in the district are already on an 8:30 a.m. – 2:50 p.m. schedule – Mine Centre and Crossroads School in Devlin.