The Surprising Daily Life of a Japanese Elementary School Student! (Lunch, Cleaning, After School)

The Surprising Daily Life of a Japanese Elementary School Student! (Lunch, Cleaning, After School) — YouTube

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Do you remember your elementary school days? I don't remember every detail, but I have fragmented memories of delicious school lunches, cleaning classrooms ourselves after school, and playing at school after classes.

Based on my own experiences, I want to take a deep dive into Japanese elementary schools. Here, let's take a more detailed look at a typical day for an elementary school student.

Going to School#

When I was in elementary school, morning homeroom started at 8:30 AM, so I had to be in my classroom by then. If you attended a public elementary school, you go to the school in your assigned school district. In my case, my elementary school was about 10 to 15 minutes away on foot.

When I was in lower grades, I used to walk to school with my siblings. In higher grades, I think I usually walked alone or with friends. Since going to school by bicycle was forbidden, we basically went to school on foot.

Also, the school designated specific routes for commuting, so we basically used those paths for going to and from school. I think local volunteers would stand along the school routes in the mornings to watch over the children, and teachers would also patrol near the school gate and along the routes.

Class Schedule and Dismissal Time#

Lesson times are generally about 45 minutes per period, and the number of periods changes depending on the grade level. For lower elementary grades, there are relatively fewer periods, typically 4 to 5. However, as students reach higher grades, 5 to 6 periods become common. Accordingly, dismissal times also change, usually ranging from around 12:00 PM to 3:30 PM.

In the past, there were classes on Saturdays, but now it's from Monday to Friday, and Saturdays and Sundays are generally off.

Lunchtime (Kyushoku)#

After the four morning lessons, it's time for "Kyushoku" - school lunch time. Daily school lunches are sometimes prepared at the school itself, or they might be made at a school lunch center and delivered to each school. In my case, it was prepared at school, so we would go to the school kitchen to pick up our lunch when it was time for kyushoku. The daily menu is created by a nutritionist who considers nutritional balance, so both students and teachers can enjoy healthy meals.

When I was an elementary school student, the "Kyushoku Toban", school lunch duty, students from each class would go to the kitchen to get the lunch and then serve it to their classmates. Sometimes, a Kyushoku Toban student would accidentally spill all the food, but I think we would get extra portions from other classes if they had any leftover. Since we were elementary school students, it was unavoidable for such things to happen.

If there was leftover food, we could get seconds. Students who wanted more would often get seconds, and for popular menus, if many wanted refills, we would decide who got them by playing rock-paper-scissors.

Cleaning Time#

After lunch or after all lessons ended, there was a cleaning time. Students on cleaning duty would clean their assigned areas. When I was in elementary school, we cleaned our own classrooms, stairs, and public area like the hallway in front of our class that our class was responsible for. It usually finished in about 15-20 minutes, after which students would go home or take their lunch break.

After School and Going Home#

After classes finish, students usually go home after the final homeroom. However, some students stay to play at school, or go "Gakudo Hoiku", after school childcare.

Gakudo Hoiku is a facility where schools look after children after school and provide a place for activities, often used when parents are away at work. At Gakudo Hoiku, teachers are often university student part-timers or local volunteers who look after the children. I remember having friends who worked part-time at Gakudo Hoiku when I was a university student.

In my time, it wasn't so strict, so sometimes we would play at school with friends until the evening before going home, or make detours. However, if it got too late, our parents would get angry, and the school also had a curfew, so all students had to leave by around 6:00 PM.

When I was in first grade, there was a system called "shudan geko", group dismissal, where we would walk home with our classmates and a teacher until we were able to go home alone. Other than group dismissal, we usually went home alone or with friends.

Activities at Home#

Schools generally assign a lot of homework, and students must do it at home and bring it to school the next day. Thinking back to my elementary school days, I remember doing homework like kanji writing practice and math calculations at home. The amount wasn't usually that large, so if I forgot, I sometimes did it during the morning time at school.

Also, during long breaks like summer and winter vacation, there was a lot of homework, and some assignments were different from regular ones, like book reports, art drawings, or calligraphy. So, we needed to plan carefully to complete them.

In this article, we discussed a typical day in the life of an elementary school student.

Things like school lunch and cleaning time are often talked about as being unique to Japan, but for Japanese people, these are very familiar experiences that we've gone through as a matter of course.

Closing Remarks#

Thank you for reading my article today. I hope you found the information helpful.
If you have any questions, please share comments on Twitter or YouTube.
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