Why we should have longer lunchtimes

 Oamaru Intermediate School

Pembroke Street 

Oamaru 

9400

Wednesday 26 August 2020

Dear Mrs Healey,

Having been a student at Oamaru Intermediate School for the last year and a half, I feel that my peers and myself  would strongly benefit from having longer lunchtimes preferably extended from 1:25pm to 2:00pm. However not only my peers would benefit from such a change I believe that  our staff would benefit too. I have many reasons to support longer lunchtimes which are all outlined in this letter….

Firstly, during lunch time we only have one hour, and by the time you eat lunch, get changed for PE and go to the toilet. It's already 1:15pm and most of our lunch has been wasted from doing necessary things that we don't have a choice on whether we do or not. Furthermore, if we had longer lunch times then there would be more room for some needed discipline. Timeouts would be increased to longer times and I know that not many people would like to have a longer timeout  than necessary so this may positively affect children's behavior in  and out of the classroom.

Secondly, having longer lunchtimes would take a lot of stress away from teachers having to fit PE into our school curriculum. And without having PE in the school curriculum it would give myself and my peers more time to improve in other subjects such as reading, writing and maths.As at least 85% of our pairs already play sports during lunch, it would only be a matter of encouraging that 15% of students to try something new and get out there, you never know it may be something that they move on to loving for life all because of those amazing Oamaru Intermediate staff that encouraged them.

Finally, I believe that it wouldn't be such a bore at school if we had longer lunchtimes and that people would look forward to school more if we did. We would be able to socialise more, which might I add is very important to do at this age to ensure that we have healthy and stable relationships.. If longer lunchtimes were to affect how much work we were to get done there is always the opportunity to extend our school day by 30 minutes to make up needed times.

 In conclusion I strongly believe that we should be having longer lunch times to improve ourselves academically and meantally. I also believe that you should carefully consider all my points that I have stated in this letter. I hope you come back to me with a positive final decision.

Your Sincerely,

Chloe