The longer kids are at school during a week, and the longer a school building is open, the more costs will accumulate. Schools need to pay electricity and heating costs when the school is open, as well as employ staff other than teachers, such as caretakers and other assistants. Thus, if a school is open for fewer hours per week, these costs will be reduced. This saved money can help schools balance their budgets in the long run.
By reducing the number of hours in a school day or over the course of a school week, some schools find that students' behavioral problems decrease. Since there are fewer free moments during the day in which a student can cause trouble, teachers have to contend with fewer problems.
Shorter school hours present an opportunity for educational institutions to expand the range and depth of the extracurricular activities they offer. A school day that finishes an hour earlier than usual, for example, presents the chance for a sports, drama or music club to begin practice earlier. Thus, extracurricular activities achieve more because students have more time to practice. Kids who were put off such activities for fear of being unable to balance school work and extracurricular projects may be able to do both successfully.
The fewer hours schools, the fewer lessons teachers have to plan for and the fewer pieces of work that need grading. Thus, a reduced number of school hours will result in teachers having more opportunity to prepare for each lesson they teach, and there is a lessened risk of staff becoming stressed at the amount of work they need to do each week. The hope is that as teachers become less stressed and are able to put more time into each lesson, the overall quality of these lessons will increase.