According to law on compulsory schools the annual school period for pupils should not be shorter than 9 months. The school period is counted in school days, which are divided into teaching days, examination/assessment days and other teaching days. Other teaching days are days when teaching according to the timetable does not take place, such as when field trips and school trips are organised. According to the reading plan for compulsory schools the minimum number of teaching hours in grades 1 to 4 is 30 hours (1,200 min.), 35 hours in grades 5 to 7 (1,400 min.) and 37 hours in grades 8 to 10 (1,480 min.).
There are 179 school days on average
Each spring Statistics Iceland collects data from all compulsory schools. The difference in the number of school days by grade is not significant. The average number of school days for all grades was 179.2. The number of school days ranged from 172 to 189 with the exception of one school. That school had an exemption from the Ministry of education to teach 139 days in grades 1 to 3, because of school bus arrangements. The number of examination days is lowest in the first grade or 0.5 days and highest in the tenth grade or 7.2 days on average.
During the school year 2007-2008 there were 174 compulsory schools operating in Iceland. Not all compulsory schools teach all grades. The second grade (7 years old) was taught in most schools or 167. The tenth grade was taught in 138 compulsory schools (figure 1).
There are 13 annual teachers’ working days without pupils
The annual spring data collection requests the number of teachers’ working days without pupils. The average number of teachers’ working days without pupils last school year 2007-2008 was 13.1. The number varied from 5 to 21 between schools. Teachers had 4.9 working days on average without students during the school year and 8.2 days before the start of the school year and/or after the school year ended.
On average the total number of teachers’ working days was 192 days, 179 with pupils and 13 without pupils. This is the same number of days as in 2006-2007.
Almost one out of four pupils receive special support
During the school year 2007-2008 10,640 pupils received some kind of special education or support, or 24.3% of all pupils, a decrease of 162 pupils from the previous year, or by 1.5%. The largest proportion of pupils receiving support is found among pupils in fourth grade (9 year old pupils), or 27.4% of the cohort, but lowest among pupils in tenth grade, 18.5% of pupils. Of those 10,640 pupils receiving special education or support 62.2% were boys and 37.8% were girls.