Starting Tuesday, the school day at government primary schools will begin at 8.30am.
***Clarification, 5 pm 6 Sept.: A reader helpfully points out that the delayed start will apply only to government primary schools — not to secondary schools.***
The directive from the premier to push back the start time by 15 minutes is intended to assist with morning traffic jams, according to a post on the Prospect Primary School Facebook page by Principal Matthew Read.
The school day will still end at 3pm.
Here is the text of Read’s post:
Dear Parents and Community
On Friday 4th September a Directive was handed down from the Premier to the Minister of Education, Mandating a change to the start of the school day for ALL Government schools.
Effective Tuesday, 8 September the school day will begin at 8:30am.
To facilitate this we will be bringing students into the building at 8:15am for devotion and registration and instruction will begin at 8:30am. Timetables will be altered to reflect this change.
Bus drop off in the morning will be no earlier than 7:45am.
The school day ends at 3:00pm promptly.
This change has been brought about to alleviate the traffic jam heading in George Town in the mornings and represents a return to the traffic pattern that existed before the change to the school day last year. I would suggest dropping off no earlier than 8:00am if you can manage it so that students do not have an unduly long wait before school starts in the morning.
Thank you as ever for your support and cooperation.