I heard from a friend that you guys start at 7am in the morning, only have half an hour for lunch and no recess break! Is this true? In my country highschool is 9am-3pm. with about an hour lunch break and a half an hour recess break. Do you guys end super early because of the small breaks and early start time and how do you manage that if so. Asking because I'm thinking of doing exchange and don't know if I'd be able to handle it or not, if my friends not lying.
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my high school started actually pretty late, I think we started at 9? it was a bit odd, got out at 4ish.
But every state/high school will be different, some probably will start at 7, although I think 8 is more common.
I wouldn’t really call 30 min lunch short, atleast for me I would easily eat everything and then go out for “recess”, although in high school that’s basically was just chilling outside with friends talking.
This varies a lot by location , but I’ve never heard a school starting as late as 9. We never had recess but we had a few 15 minute breaks.
Most schools start between 7 and 830. 7 is unusually early but not unheard of.
Part of this is due to bussing. Many times the same buses need to get the younger kids to and from school to so they drop off the high school kids then start the younger kids route.
High school started at 7:15 and ended at 1:45 with a 40 minute lunch.
I don’t know of any high school that has a recess. That’s usually for elementary school children.
There’s no national start time so it’s going to vary by school district.
It’s been 20 years since I was in high school. The day started at 6:50 AM with home room. We did not have breaks or recess except for a 25 minute lunch. School day ended around 3:00. But I do believe this varies and is dependent on the school district.
Definitely all true. No recess, lunch was 45 mins for me. Thats about it.
My first class started at 7:10, we had 6 classes and a 10 minute “home room” with 5 minute breaks in between, lunch was 30 minutes and the last class ended at 2:20
In California most public High Schools dont start that early anymore. But the reason most started at 0700ish and ended around 2 or 3pm was because sports and extracurricular activities (band, dance, clubs, etc.) were directly after school on campus. I remember being at school from 0700 to 1800 daily. Our lunches were 45 minutes back then, with no recess.
My high school started at 8 and was done at 3. We had a 15min recess and one full period, so an hour, for lunch.
There’s a ton of variation in American schools. It’s very common for high schools to start before 8am, but there are also some that start later.
Half hour for lunch is standard in American public schools, and in my area, recess stops after 5th grade (age 10/11).
When I was in HS it was 8-3:30, half hour lunch, and the closest thing to a break was if you had openings in your schedule for study hall
I used to wake up at 6 am to walk to the bus stop. You got out at 2:50 I think and if you stayed for some after school thing you’d get home at 5 or 6 at night
My first period started at 7:35 and we got out at 2:10. I think it was 35 minutes for lunch. No recess.
All high schools in my area end around 2:10-2:15, with some slight variation, and classes start around 7:30-7:45.. lunches do tend to be 20-30mins, and that fully depends on the school size.
Every state has different requirements for what needs to be covered and so they do have to maximize learning time over social time, although some places might offer a short snack break or something mid morning.
Many student participate in sports and other activities after school, so there isn’t a need for “recess”, but also high schools do offer phys ed, (gym class), where you learn/play sports as a class. If activity during the day is important to you, see about taking phys ed during your exchange.
My kid goes to high school 7:45-3 which includes a study period. Lunchtime is one period which is 45 minutes. There are multiple lunch periods, not all kids have the same time. On Mondays they start at 9 to give the teachers a planning hour.
Middle school (typically grade 6-8) starts at 9, and goes til after 4. Elementary is typically 8 something to about 3 and high school here is 7:15-1:45.
My daughter is a senior (12th grade) and only has 1 class per day. She is taking a virtual course in addition to help wrap up her school year.
My son is a sophomore and is taking 7 classes, and is on the JV football team.
It starts early, but that early start leaves time for practices, extra curricular, and some students work after school.
The early start is rough!! A lot of teens struggle with it.
The 30 minute lunch break isn’t really long, but on the other hand it allows them to wrap up the day faster instead of prolonging it
I went to high school 2006-2010. First class started at 7:45. There was no home rooms or anything like that. Lunch was anywhere between starting at 10:45 or 12:00. There was no recess. Recess is not a high school thing. I know some schools had study hall or a “free” period to do whatever but not the school I went to.
High School (grades 9-12) generally does not have a recess component
Even in younger grades, 90 minute recess would be pretty extreme.
The purpose of an exchange is to be exposed to something different.
You will somehow be able to live without 90 minute recess for one semester.
all this stuff is set at the district or even individual school level so you are going to get very different answers. I know for sure that we didn’t get anything like recess in high school where I was. If I remember right, it was something like 7:15 to 3:45 and we got an hour for lunch. But this was 20 years ago and again stuff like school hours and lunch duration is something that is going to be determined by the school district (there are more than 10,000 in the US) or by the school itself (much larger number).
When I was in school it started around 7 and ended around 3. Recess was an elementary school only thing and we had 20 minutes for lunch.
You’re like 14, you’d be surprised what you can handle if you’re not being angsty online
Mine started at 7:30. We had 25 minutes for lunch. There is no recess after elementary (primary) school.
The district I work in starts high school later nowadays. Still only half an hour for lunch and no recess. My high school many many years ago started at around 7 am. Still a short lunch and no recess.
My high school started at 7:30am and we got out at 2:40, with a 25 minute lunch break. There were no other breaks but one of your classes could be gym. You had 6 classes per day, a mix of core subjects and electives.
Extra help and some extracurricular activities start at 7 but classes start at at 7:40 at my kids’ school. It ends around 2:40. Lunchtime is 40 minutes. Every other day they have gym. After school they have sports and other activities (music, clubs, etc). My son got to school yesterday at 7:00 and got home at 6:30.
My high school started at 7:15. Don’t remember how long lunch was, but there were 4 different lunch periods due to the number of students, earliest one started at 10:30. No recess afterward.
My high school was 8am-3pm, with s 45 min lunch. You don’t have recess in high school, only grade school, but you do have about 10 min between classes. Not sure what recess entails there, here for grade school kids it is mostly playing on a playground, so in hs you would have physical education class where you play sports and do exercises (not all the time, for me it was only one semester the first 2 years, but you can choose to take more years of it).
I wouldn’t let something small like waking up an hour or so earlier stop you from such a big life experience as foreign exchange program, if you are interested in it otherwise. You would adapt pretty quickly.
I graduated HS in the late 90s, but from seeing the school bus around, I don’t think the times have changed. We started at 8:05 and ended at 3:20. We had a 30 minute lunch and there was no recess.
I teach at a school that goes 8-3. Lunch is 40 minutes. No recess after 5th grade.
Current high school starts at 7:45, has a full period (45min) for lunch, and gets a free period to study or socialize (45min).
From New England, high school ended for me in 2015. We started at 7:30, has about twenty minutes for lunch, and our “breaks” were the two minutes to get to your next class. That said, we were done around 1:45 or so.
Each high school has its own schedule, but in the US they typically start earlier than 9 and I have never heard of one with such long breaks. No recess and a shorter lunch of 30-40 minutes would be common.
As others have said, it varies not just from state-to-state but sometimes even county-to-county. Also, it does change based on the years.
When I was in high school, we started at around 8 am, had 4 1-and-a-half hour classes with a 30-minute lunch period, and 10 minutes between classes.
But because of how the bus schedules ran, if you took the bus you would have to get up much earlier. My bus stop was the first on the route, so I had to be out at the stop at 6 to get picked up on time.
Now, you might wonder why we started so early? Well, the answer was simple. It was so that when we got out of class at 2:30, we could be home in time before the elementary schools got out at 3:30 so we could pick-up or receive our younger siblings while our parents were still at work.
In my city, it’s 8:50-4:00 with 30 minutes for lunch. Some students have open hours depending on schedule.
This varies across the country.
My kids start at 8:45 and they get a half hour for lunch. It’s ok if you bring your lunch, but if you’re buying you can spend most of the time in line and end up with 5 minutes to eat.
I think the culture in the US is different when it comes to time. We do everything early. Some European countries have dinner after 10pm. By that time in the US most people are sleeping already.
> how do you manage that if so
Well, it’s not unusual to us. It’s totally normal. So we manage it by going through the motions like every other day, it’s not a shock to our system to do what’s normal.
> don’t know if I’d be able to handle it or not
Our kids do just fine, so would you.
I was in high school 20 years ago. We definitely had zero recess and were not allowed outside the school building from 7:35 to 3:30ish except if we were in PE. Lunch was 30 minutes with two six minute passing periods on either side and included all grades. So if you didn’t get there early or bring your own lunch you usually had about 10 minutes to eat.
It was stressful as a student who worked and did sports and other extracurriculars because I would get to school about 6:30 and leave as late as 9pm or go to work straight away.
I’m a teacher in Texas. Our classes run from 8:55am-4:25pm with a 30 minute lunch and no recess.
My high school started at 7:30, we would have a 20 minute break at 9, a 45 minute lunch and then were done for the day by 3:15.
*’Is it true, your high school starts super early, and you have no recess/short lunch?”*
It depends on the school and location OP.
I don’t remember when my actual school started but I remember getting to the school pretty early because of the bus and hanging around for 30-40 minutes before classes actually started. Usually gives kids time to hang out.
There isn’t any recess but there are study halls where you are free to do whatever you want within reason, as long as it wasn’t loud. There is also a period for gym so I feel like it gave people some time to unwind like a recess between those two.
Lunch, gym, and study halls were all structured during class periods. AKA the same time allotted for math class is what you get for lunch. I think a lot of school do this since there are more kids than cafeteria space. So how much time you get depends on how longs classes are in that school (usually)
Recess? In high school? 💀😂
It’s been a really long time since I was in high school, but I want to say that it started at around 8:30 and we had 25 minutes for lunch. Recess was not a thing after 5th grade, but we did get a 15 or so minute break sometime in during the day; I feel like it was in the morning but I don’t recall for sure. There was also 5 minutes between classes, but I don’t think that would be considered a break.
Looking at the bell schedules for a few of the high schools in the county that I live in now, it looks like they all run from either 8:30 to 3:00 or 8:00 to 2:30 with a 25 minute lunch. I don’t see any sort of breaks baked into the schedule, though, other than 5 minutes between classes.
If you’re in the UK, our “high school” is different than yours.
High school here is grade 9-12 and you’re usually 14/15 – 17/18 years old.
At this age you don’t get a recess, and lunch would typically be 30-45 minutes, depending on the school and your schedule.
Grades 8 and under generally do get a recess, it’s usually 30 for lunch and 30 for recess. Perhaps another break in there.
I didn’t get recess in 7th & 8th grade (age 12 and 13ish), but some schools you do.
Even in my city different schools had different start times. My high school was a 7a start my freshman year, but due to budget cuts we merged with another school and it got pushed back to an 8a start.
I think kindergarten through 8th grade was a 9a start for me.
My high school started at 7:45, no recess, lunch was 50 minutes (the same amount of time as our classes). We ended around 2:20.
My high school started at 7:17am and got out at 2:05pm. Lunch was about a half an hour and we had like 7 min between classes. School was better after I could drive there since my schoolbus route meant I was the first pickup at like 6:06am and it took me about 8 min to walk there. If the bus missed me because it was a new driver or if I missed it, then I’d have to walk to the last stop that got picked up around 6:45.
When I was in high school, classes started around 8:30am and ended at 3:00pm, though I often stayed after school for sports and other activities. No, we didn’t have recess, but we were required to have gym class for our first year and half of our second year. We also had free periods throughout the day; some students would use that time to run around campus or play games in the gym ([pillo polo](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pillo+polo&t=ffab&ia=images&iax=images) was a common game, and I’d sometimes play it if I didn’t have schoolwork or studying to do).
Schools in my area start around 9am and end around 3pm give or take 15 minutes… and lunch is always 45 minutes, the same as any other class period… Most people also have a free period though and a second that isn’t a “real” class (like gym or an elective)
As others have stated, highschool varies depending on your location, but my highschool experience was we started at 7:45am and went to 3:15pm. Lunch was 45 minutes and we did not have recess. There were no official breaks during the day, but most students would have a free period in there schedule. This was dependant on how many optional classes you took, if you took too many you wouldn’t have a free period.
>Asking because I’m thinking of doing exchange and don’t know if I’d be able to handle it or not, if my friends not lying.
I gave a more substantive answer elsewhere, but I’ll also say, that’s a really dumb reason not to do an exchange program.
Millions of Americans do just fine starting at 7 or 730, ending at 230, having a 30 minute lunch, and having limited outdoor time.
Is it ideal? No. But you’ll survive.
I guess if you really want a later start look at an exchange program that has you attending a private school for your time in the US.