Should We Extend School by Two Hours and Take Friday off?

Welcome students and teachers. Today I wish to speak to you about the controversial issue that is currently being debated in our school: Should we consider Friday as a part of the weekend and in turn extend each of the remaining school days by two hours? There are many points supporting this change, but overall this change will not be beneficial for the students' futures. As it is, we students already feel as if we have almost no time within each day for personal matters. I will present points that will strengthen my argument and show why we cannot allow this to happen.

The main reason why we should not extend the school time by two hours is because students already spend too much time per day in school. The four days that students are in school will have to be extended, and this will shorten their free time for studying, leisurely activities and also resting in the night.

Some say that by extending the day by two hours it will give a chance for students to receive extra help and thus they will have to do less homework when they are at home. However, in our school students are offered time in the morning, at lunch and after school if they need any additional help with their homework. If their teacher is not available to them, another teacher who teaches the same course would be glad to help in whatever way they can. If a student is not able to attend these additional hours, they can just ask questions during class because half of the class is usually devoted to in-class work. The idea of extending the hours that students spend in school is preposterous Ð'- what is the need when our school already conveniently provides extra help for its students?

Besides studying and doing homework, students have other commitments after school. Many have a part-time job which requires them to work a certain number of hours per day, and they may not be able to work on the weekend. If each school day is extended and students continue to work the same amount of hours, this will surely affect their study habits. The same thing applies to students who do volunteer work, since all Ontario students are required to do at least 40 hours. Even leisurely activities such as the Yearbook Committee will take up too much of the students' free time because they will be in school longer than before. If the hours spent in school are to increase students will be faced with more time constraints, forcing them to rush their work and end up with a shoddy product. This could cause an intelligent student to be looked down upon due to bad performance, but this bad performance may

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