DOWN at Isambard Community School 15 minutes has been shaved from the lunchbreak.

As a result, pupils have launched a petition against the measure, attracting 100 signatures. Some have also spoken out with commendable articulacy.

School officials say the aim is to add 15 minutes to the final lesson of the day. Many people will be a little bewildered by this.

As any child, young person, former child or young person, teacher, teaching assistant or anybody else who’s spent time in a classroom knows, the last lesson of the day is already quite long enough.

That’s why teachers in charge of them have to spend the last five minutes telling pupils to stop putting their books and pens away.

Quite what adding 15 minutes to this restless period will achieve is beyond me.

Incidentally, a spokesman for the school said: “It would be refreshing if all those who signed this petition were as interested in educational success as they appear to be in a minor change to the school day.”

Unless that spokesman has proof of his assertion, it seems rather nasty and mean-spirited, and hardly calculated to foster good will among pupils and parents.