The aim is both to ease student workload and to allow for deeper learning, and means longer lessons are increasingly replacing the traditional 45-minute slots.

Three schools in Rakvere, for instance, plan partly to replace 45-minute lessons with classes nearly twice as long, at 80 minutes, starting from the new school year in September.

Martti Marksoo, principal at one of the schools, Rakvere Reaalkool, said switching to longer lessons also requires changes in lesson structure and methodologies.

"A diversity of activities can take place within a longer lesson: the teacher can explain the material, followed by class discussion either in pairs or groups, independent practice, plus breaks in between. With science subjects, it will be viable to carry out various experiments and solve problem tasks at a calmer pace, from start to finish," Marksoo said.

Marksoo added that using longer lesson times also makes for a shorter overall school day, as well as reducing the number of times in a day students need to switch focus from subject to subject. The amount of homework should also drop under the new approach, he said.

At the same time, not all lessons can immediately make the switch to 80 minutes, so the Rakvere school's timetable will include both 80-minute and 40-minute classes alongside each other.

"We are trying to arrange things so that every subject has long lessons in at least some grades. For example, mathematics gets five lessons per week with most grades, so most likely there will be two long lessons and one short one. Foreign languages have three lessons per week, meaning one long and one short lesson — but putting all this together is quite a logistical puzzle," Marksoo noted.

Hele Liiv-Tellmann, chief expert in the basic and general education department at the Ministry of Education and Research, said that quite a few schools have already been teaching lessons longer than 45 minutes, while their number is increasing over time.

"We are mostly talking about high schools, but longer lessons have also started to become quite popular in elementary education. This has some very strong benefits for learners: there are fewer subjects during the day, and lessons provide an opportunity to concentrate and use different teaching methods," Liiv-Tellmann said.

Changing lesson length also follows the primary relevant legislation, the Basic Schools and Upper Secondary Schools Act.

Care is needed in making the new system effective, she noted, adding a situation where the same lesson plan just gets drawn out over a longer period of time must be avoided.

"The most important aspect is that a school reaches a common understanding: not only do lesson lengths change, but also the entire content and methodology of a lesson must change as well. A situation where a 45-minute lecture simply becomes a 60- or 70-minute lecture must not arise. The methodology used in lessons has to change, and that will surely make the learning process significantly more effective," Liiv-Tellmann said.

Pelgulinna Gümnaasium high school in Tallinn has already been teaching 75-minute lessons from first through ninth grade for several years now. Principal Tõnu Piibur said the aim of switching to longer lessons was to make learning more effective and to give students a better opportunity to concentrate.

"All the original goals have been reached — learning throughout the day has become considerably more systematic. Students need to consider a smaller number of different subjects during the day and can concentrate during lessons, which has also been reflected in learning outcomes. Factual knowledge has not disappeared, but there is now more time for discussion and reflection," the principal said.

The academic year winds up at the end of May and schools return on September 1.

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