Jumping lesson

The title of this article is ambiguous. For an explanation in terms of a riding lesson, see show jumping

A jumping lesson (also free lesson , hollow lesson , window (hour), gap lesson , bridging lesson and others) is a period in the school timetable in which the persons concerned are not involved in any lessons.

For teachers in particular, it often happens (often several times a day) that between two lessons to be given there are one or more hours in which no regular lessons (according to the timetable) are to be given. These jumping lessons can then be used to organize or prepare for lessons. In addition, teachers are available for substitute lessons during hollow hours. To ensure substitute lessons, the school administrators are also advised by the respective (culture) ministries to intentionally integrate sufficient jumping lessons into the teachers' timetables. For this reason, unions argue that hollow hours should be viewed as on-call duty.

Schoolchildren can also have so-called “windows” in their timetable, i.e. jumping lessons in which they can spend a school lesson without further instruction or supervision. Generally speaking, the students have common areas or work areas where they can make good use of the time. Depending on the school organization, jumping lessons are deliberately integrated in the lunchtime area to enable students to have lunch.

Due to the duty of care and supervision of the schools, jumping lessons in the primary and lower secondary levels only occur in rare exceptional cases. With increasing independence of the pupils, jumping lessons become more frequent, in the upper secondary level they are hardly avoidable due to the organization in the course system.

Web links

Wiktionary: Free period  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry "jumping lesson" . duden.de. Retrieved March 19, 2018.
2. ↑ Organization of lessons. Bavarian State Ministry for Science, Research and the Arts , accessed on February 24, 2017 . 
3. ^ GEW - on-call service in the school. (doc) (No longer available online.) Bremen Education and Science Union , formerly the original ; accessed on February 24, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )