School Life

I am 14 years of age, and turning 15 soon in July. I attend Shinjuku Yamabuki High School and I’m in grade 9 in middle school or “lower secondary school”. I wake up at 6:00am every morning and ride my bike to school (using cars is a traffic nightmare!), usually arriving at school at about 7:40am. The school day goes for 7½ hours, starting at 8:00am and finishing at 3:30. I attend an after school club each day meaning I normally finish at 4:30; school clubs are common for students in middle school, as it increases extra curriculum credit, and it is also sometimes done just for fun! School is typically on from Monday to Friday, but on some occasions on a Saturday too – usually just half a Saturday though. I do 10 subjects, including English, Japanese, History, Physics, Biology, Mathematics, HPE (Health and Physical Education), Home Economics, IT (Information Technology), Social Studies/Economics. My favourites are IT and Biology, they’re really exciting! We have one classroom for all these subjects - so usually we “personalise” our desks, decorating them with all sorts of things we like. The teachers normally stand on a platform at the front of the classroom and explain and do things by talking and writing, which can get boring sometimes! I have a best friend, Misaki, who’s nearly in all my classes. We hang out at lunch time, which goes for 40 minutes, and sometimes at recess, although we normally spend recess cleaning up the classroom – wipe the floors, clean the blackboard and pick up rubbish. We have 7 classes a day, each going for 50 minutes – talk about a long day!

This is what a typical Japanese classroom looks like -

the teacher will stand at the front at the room and lecture

while the students write it down.

Source: http://melaniedelgrosso.com/pb/wp_eb15f3b7/images/img21385471e13d66dcf2.JPG