Adapting to change can be difficult and may take some time to get used to. Compared to last year, the current schedule at Woodstock vastly differs. While this isn’t necessarily bad, no schedule is completely perfect. The thoughts and opinions of students and staff were compiled to see the overall impact of the new schedule.

“I think that there have been a lot of improvements but I know that 6-day schedules are complicated.” – Mr. Agustín Silvadíaz, Head of Libraries. 

Mr. Agustín, teacher and Head Librarian at Woodstock gives us a perspective from a teacher’s point of view of the schedule. Empathizing with students, he states that although the new schedule has made students in UY extremely busy, as well as MYP and EY. On the other hand, if used well, the new periods that have been introduced into the schedule could be very beneficial. However, this can be risky if not properly utilized. According to Mr. Augustín, “There is no good schedule.” He has also proposed schedules in the past that also had flaws. He admitted to not loving being awake earlier but thinks that a plus point for the schedule is that it has effectively integrated the passage into the day. He agrees that there are indeed things that need to be worked on, further adding that the administration is trying to improve it and will probably have it working better next year. 

“Last semester the whole of UY had the same lunchtime from 12:50 pm to 2:15 pm and everyone had the time to do other things than just eat during lunch. Now I don’t have that flexibility and everything is condensed into 45 minutes…There are no empty seats during lunch and I don’t know what to do, I usually take 2 hours to eat.” – Jaemin Han, NHS President.

Jaemin Han, also a student in 12th grade, adds on to the lack of empty seats during lunch due to this rush, and how last semester there was more time to do other things than just eat during lunch.

Building on this issue at lunchtime…

“I stood in line for 40 minutes just to get a tray of plain rice” – Eliza Applegarth, Grade 9.

According to Eliza, adding an extra class after Facetime just makes the day longer, and taking this time out of lunch to make this period just reduces the amount of time students have to get food let alone eat it. 

“I like having shorter classes that go by quicker.” – Selma Myers, Grade 12.

When interviewing Selma, a senior, she commented on how efforts were made to balance out the required DP hours by shortening the painfully long 50-minute classes that most of us endured last semester. Additionally, studies have also shown that if students were given shorter periods of time to focus on a subject, this would in turn improve the overall performance and quality of work turned in as compared to those with longer periods. This was covered previously by Kyra Malhotra at The Woodstocker here.

“Music last year was from 7:35 to 8:15. Because of this I couldn’t get much sleep so I am happy with the change made,” – Shaurya Sircar, Grade 7

Shaurya Sircar says that earlier having time set apart for morning music had affected his overall sleep schedule which had made him more tired during the day. This would also lead to him missing out on Late Start Wednesdays, so he is quite happy with the new changes made and addition of flex time. 

However in contrast to this…

“It’s nicer not having morning music but maybe they could have done things differently…We don’t have any more music slots and things aren’t flexible” – Eliza Applegarth and Tisya Kanwar, Grade 9

Tisya and Eliza say that even though this period was added to be solely dedicated for things like music, this is not the most efficient way to go about the classes. They say that all music slots during flex have filled up forcing some students to be moved around from teacher to teacher. But previously when lunch was longer music timings would be divided into two separate slots- one being in the first half of lunch and the other in the remaining half, making things more flexible for students taking music. This has led to most of their free periods being taken up for their practice sessions, but according to them, since almost everyone has the same free periods, this has led to there being a big rush to take up the practice rooms.

These are just some of the many thoughts and opinions floating around Woodstock about the new schedule, which has both prompted concerns and offered new opportunities for learning.

Faith is a staff reporter.

Edited by Asha.