A week after it was first leaked, it is now official:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53253722
How might this work in a secondary school?
Well, let's see..
So, two siblings in different year groups are walking together to school; they are joined by friends who live near them or on their route to school.
They get to the school gate. Some of the children go straight in, while others hang around and socialise with others in the playground (or perhaps in nearby streets) waiting for their year group to be let in. While those whose start time is later are hanging around, they are joined by friends in other year groups who are also waiting.
If they are to have break and lunch times, given a reduced 10 min break, you may have Year 7 going for break at 10am; the bell will ring for the end of their break at 10:10, and at 10:15 they are all back in classes and Year 8 will go, and so on. This means that, even with a shorter break, the final break time will finish at 1:115.
But then, just 15 minutes later, year 7 may need to go for lunch as early as 11:30. They would get a reduced 25 minutes lunch time , the bell would go at 11:55 and they'd all be in classes by 12:00 when Year 8 would go, and so on... meaning Year 11 don't get to finish lunch until 14:00.
And at the end of the day, Year 7 may need to finish at 14:10, then Year 8 15 minutes later, and so on... but of course, some of the kids will hang around outside the school until siblings/cousins/friends have their finishing time!
Breakfast clubs will presumably be cancelled, or perhaps run for one year group only.
Break/lunch time clubs will need to run concurrently from 10am to 2pm to cater for all year groups or be cancelled.
And after school clubs will either be cancelled or run for just one year group. Sports activities that rely on older children helping to run activities for younger children would be cancelled.
Children who have their closest friends in other year groups will no longer enjoy coming to school.
The school would presumably have to employ many additional staff, including "midd day supervisory assistants" who would need to work from 10am to 2pm, as break/lunch times could no longer be staffed by teachers and other school staff as it would take up too much of their day.
Instead of daily detentions, you'd either need to have a weekly detention for each year group, or times the number of staff on detention duty by five.
And what about lesson changeover times? You can't really stagger these for different year groups. You can't have each year group in a segregated part of the school unless you scrap specialist lessons such as Design Technology, Food, and Science.
It's unclear how learning support departments could possibly function, except perhaps by putting the most vulnerable students in a single bubble, but that ignores the fact that many students only require a bit of additional support.
It's absolute madness, it's going to cost a lot of money in additional staffing and students are going to suffer through loss of extra curricular activities, loss of leadership roles, and all sorts.
If anyone here has experience of working in a school, I'd be interested in hearing your views.
If anyone thinks this could work, I'd be curious to learn how they'd overcome the problems described above!