Middle School Power Hour: Everything You Need To Know

Contemporary schools worldwide are looking for ways to empower their students, build a thriving community, and equip them for the real world. Power hour refers to a school-wide, flexible hour that allows students to gain control over their school experience. Some schools have used the concept of power hour to reduce discipline problems, increase attendance, and foster healthier behaviors in students.  Power hour also presents the opportunity to engage students and more flexibly address real world learning for each student.  Middle school is a crucial stage for students to continue developing ownership of their learning and demonstrate independence and responsibility.  Beginning a power hour program provides a flexible structure in which students can gain experience with both successes and mistakes.

What Exactly is Power Hour Learning?

Power hour is usually a one-hour, school-wide, flexible time.  Power hour can be scheduled at any time during the day. Some schools utilize a power hour with a 30-minute lunch break and a 30-minute advisory period. Within this one power hour, students can eat lunch and engage in different educational and co-curricular programs.

These programs include numerous opportunities for students and educators to work together to continue academic and social-emotional learning.  The flexible time within a power hour can be structured to meet the unique needs of students and include tutoring, resource centers, club meetings, advisory and student collaboration.  In addition to meeting academic needs, this system can also include opportunities for mentorship, tiered privilege systems, and rewards.  

Understanding the Benefits of Middle School Power Hour

Schools can leverage these top benefits by introducing the middle school power hour concept.

Community Building

An initial and significant benefit of middle school power hour is that it fosters community building. During this time, students can engage in various group activities ranging from sports to dance or other academic activities. During power hour, students no longer remain grouped by class schedules, which helps them bond with their classmates and other students through common interests.

Improved Student Engagement and Belonging Through Clubs and Activities

Extracurricular activities provide students with a sense of belonging and encourage better engagement and attendance at school.  Extracurricular activities for middle-school students remain restricted by schedules. Schedule conflicts sometimes prevent students from being a part of multiple groups of interest, for example, the gaming club and soccer team. Other students who need to give more time to studies and responsibilities at home can remain engaged in clubs of their interest.  By initiating a power hour program during school, students can have club gatherings that do not hinder students' after-school schedules.

Stronger Student-Teacher Relationships

Relationships are a critical component of student growth and learning.  Many times, teachers find it hard to mentor their students and have personal interaction during class.  Power hour can help teachers address the needs of students by establishing a one-to-one or small group session.  Teachers can also initiate extended class time to attend to student interests and develop relationships through mini-seminars and cultural clubs. Furthermore, schools can build mentoring programs to connect students with caring adults. These structures and opportunities provide productive relationship building that enhances learning without interrupting class activities.

Advisory: A Sense of Direction

Advisory, a relationship-driven, structured time between an advisor and students, can be utilized to guide and communicate with students.  Advisory should include a time for academic monitoring and facilitating connection to appropriate academic supports.  Advisory should also build upon career awareness.  The exploration and determination of a life and career path begins at the elementary level and grows in importance in middle school.  While it is unreasonable to expect a middle school student to predict and commit to a career path, advisory time during power hour promotes connections between present choices and how they impact student aspirations for the future.  Middle school students can begin to comprehend and connect their current coursework and activities to the future.  

Real-World Learning Skills: Learner-Centered and Student Collaboration

In our increasingly flexible world of project-based work, students require the opportunity to practice the real-world learning skills they will need to employ in life to be successful.  During this flexible power hour period, learners identify new possibilities to make choices and directly facilitate their education. Learners develop executive functioning skills and determine how to most productively engage in meeting their learning goals.  Student collaboration with others outside of their class schedule creates a platform to expand learning networks and for students to benefit from variations in teaching approaches.  Power hour provides an opportunity for interconnection of students and interdisciplinary learning, driven by student agency.

Decreased Number of Failing Students

Power hour programs reduce the number of failing students. Mentors and teachers can more efficiently monitor learners during power hours.  Lower achieving students can use this time to attend mentoring sessions from teachers to better perform in examinations. With a tiered system, students hold the freedom to schedule their power hours. This amplification of student voice and choice is critical to student success in school.

Reduced Discipline Referrals

Disengagement and lack of student agency is a major factor in school discipline. Implementation of a power hour program provides an opportunity for productive, student-directed time, which provides an opportunity to take a break from the traditional classroom setting.  Increased voice and choice create empowered, inspired students with fewer discipline referrals.

Considerations for Implementing  Middle School Power Hour

Every new program presents some challenges initially. As you consider beginning a middle school power hour, consider the following:

Engage your imagination

Engage with the school community and identify stakeholder representatives to help study and plan for the successful implementation of power hour.

Create and facilitate understanding of the purpose for the program.  This includes the staff, students, and parents.  When the purpose and benefits are clearly understood and supported, engagement in the success of the power hour will be higher.

As you imagine your school’s overarching purpose for power hour, consult the research on other effective programs and contact schools utilizing similar structures.

Establish structure and expectations

Balancing student voice and choice (agency) with careful advisory guidance and supervision is important.  Too much flexibility will lead to chaos.  Too much structure will lead to rigidity often associated with a traditional school program.  

Adults will need to understand the expectations for their work and the boundaries for their choices in working with students.  A plan should be developed for professional learning of new skills to organize and facilitate learning, mentorship, and advisory.  

Logistical concerns must be planned for and addressed.  The management of lunch duty, hall monitoring, classroom spaces, and other areas should be considered.  The logistical challenges, if not addressed carefully, can undermine the success and benefits of the program.

Be reflective and flexible

It is imperative to routinely (weekly, monthly, and by semester) solicit stakeholder feedback and other data in order to evaluate needs.  Utilize the data gathered to drive program adjustments and improvements.  Suggested data to gather and analyze:

• Perceived benefits
• Challenges
• Suggestions for improvement
• Student attendance
• Student discipline incidence
• Student club and activity participation
• Student achievement data

Communicate the feedback on program effectiveness and improvements to the school population through school newsletters, staff memos, and staff meetings.  Consider utilizing a data dashboard to keep the most important data easily accessible.

Leadership - get started!

• As with all innovations, change demands time and commitment from school leadership to make it thrive.
• Distinguish the people who will drive transformation and make the logistics feasible. Consider everyone from the building principals and teacher leaders, to support staff and district-level administrators.
• Don’t wait for everything to be planned perfectly to get started with a power hour.  Plan well and then be prepared to monitor program implementation and make adjustments. Preparation is important and should be thoughtful.  Waiting until every single problem is solved and every stakeholder is supportive will inhibit action.  A balance of early action, accompanied with a thoughtful feedback process and continual adjustments, will better prepare you for success on a larger scale.

The Bottom Line

Middle school power hour programs can be a welcome change in every educational institute. However, before implementing this program in your school, you must consider the factors above to ensure that both students and teachers utilize the time to experience the greatest benefits.