Block scheduling is a type of academic scheduling in which each student has fewer classes per day (common in middle and high schools) (e.g. 4) Each class is scheduled for a longer period of time than normal (e.g. 90 minutes instead of 50). In one form of block scheduling, a single class will meet every day for a number of weeks, after which another class will take its place. In another form, daily classes rotate through a changing daily cycle.
Blocks offer more concentrated experiences of subjects, with fewer classes daily. There may be less regular amounts of homework for any given class.
Conversion to block scheduling became a relatively widespread trend in the 1990s for middle schools and high schools in the United States. Prior to that, many schools scheduled classes such that a student saw every one of their teachers each day. Classes were approximately 40–60 minutes long, but under block scheduling, they became approximately 90 minutes long.
One variety of block scheduling, called A/B block scheduling, is shown in the example table. Instead of taking six classes every day, students attend three classes every other day and spend double the amount of continuous time in each class. Students can take 4 classes during one semester and another 4 the next. The example given here reverts to a six-period day on Fridays. Another way of distributing the classes would be to have "A" and "B" days on alternate Fridays, or to alternate "ABABA" weeks with "BABAB" weeks.
Another common block system exists in which students spend up to 100 minutes per class, and earn four credits each semester. Excluding very rare occasions, students at schools using this system take two core classes and two electives per semester. Some schools modify this system further to use one of the mid-day periods for students to take optional year-long classes (usually band) that take half of the period length and take another year-long class during the rest of the period (such as math or journalism). Under such a system most of the classes taken on a year-long basis have all students participating, however it is not uncommon for journalism or yearbook classes to operate under the normal system and only have a few students who leave or arrive half way through the period. It is also not uncommon for these classes to be scheduled as two credits, and taken both semesters.
A method called 4×4 block scheduling splits the academic year into quarters, and uses a four-period day.[2] This leaves eight slots available for classes during a semester (four classes in each of two quarters). The 4×4 method is somewhat more flexible in that students can take two sequential classes (such as Algebra 1 and 2) in the same semester (in different quarters), which would not be possible on a traditional schedule. This also allows students in their final year to fail a third-quarter class but repeat it in the fourth quarter in order to graduate.
One more variant of the block schedule is a day 1-8 schedule, in which each day a student would have two blocks, lunch, an everyday class, and then a final block. The reason why there are 8 days in the schedule is because for one set of the days, each class (besides the everyday class) is shifted up one block, and on the other day each class is shifted down one block from its normal position. This results in year-long classes, which are in a constant cycle of switching positions to allow the students to have a variety of time that classes happen. For example, on Day 1, it would go Block 1, Block 2, Lunch, Everyday class, and then Block 3. On Day 3, the next day that all of those classes meet, the schedule would be Block 3, Block 1, Lunch, Everyday class, Block 2. The same would happen with the even days, and in reverse on Days 7 and 8. (Days 5 and 6 are meant to have the same schedule on Days 1 and 2).
