Saturday school back on agenda?

WEDNESDAY or Saturday morning lessons could be back on the timetable for schoolchildren from this September, in an apparent U-turn by the government.

The Education Ministry has written to local education authorities encouraging them to try out alternative timetabling from the rentrée - and has suggested spreading lessons over an extra half-day to make each day shorter.

The ministry does not go as far as scrapping the four-day week, but suggests that schools look at ways of rearranging lessons to "improve efficiency and respect a child's rhythm".

Saturday morning lessons were scrapped in September 2008 - giving children all of Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday out of the classroom.

The move to a four-day week was optional - but 95% of schools implemented the change.

However a report by the National Academy of Medicine in January found that primary school children were turning up to lessons tired because their timetable was too packed.

Doctors said the four-day week, with very long holidays, did not suit a child's body clock and was harming their ability to learn.