What A Typical Day Looks Like While Studying in Japan (2024)

FAQs

What is a typical day for a student in Japan? ›

In general, kids have to be at school by 8:45 am. School finishes around 3:15 pm, so they have to be in school for about six and a half hours every day from Monday to Friday. However, most kids also attend after-school clubs, and many also go to juku (cram school) in the evening to do extra studying.

The school day is divided into 6 periods, each lasting 45-50 minutes. Before the first period officially begins, students are often assigned tasks, such as taking attendance, passing out papers, or gathering homework.

In junior high and high schools, there are six class periods each day, typically lasting 50 minutes for each. After classes, students clean the classrooms in shifts and then start their club activities. There are a variety of clubs such as cultural and sports ones.

The school week spans from Monday to Friday, but many schools also offer optional classes on Saturdays. Because the pressure to achieve academically is so important in Japan, many Japanese students attend Saturday classes, which gives the impression that the school week is six days long.

Finland School Hours

Typically, the Finnish school day starts anywhere from 9 to 9:45 a.m., and students typically spend only about five hours a day in the classroom. What's more, Finnish students typically have little to no homework.

Japanese schools have three semesters, separated by vacations. At most schools, summer vacation covers the 40-odd days from July 20 to August 31; winter and spring vacation both last around 10 days, from December 26 to around January 6 and March 25 to around April 5, respectively.

On an average day, Japanese high school students attend school from 8:30am to 4:00pm and have 2 to 6 hours of homework a night, depending on the school, individual and how immersed in exam hell they are. Many attend cram school in the afternoon and on weekends and are heavily involved in sports or club activities.

Students are given a 5- to 10-minute break between consecutive classes. During the morning hours there are four classes, and many elementary schools also include a 20-minute recess. Lunch time starts at twelve thirty and lasts for about 40 minutes.

Extracurricular Activities

In most schools, clubs can be divided into two types: sports clubs (baseball, soccer, judo, kendo, track, tennis, swimming, softball, volleyball, rugby) and culture clubs (English, broadcasting, calligraphy, science, mathematics, yearbook).

Ear piercings are against Japanese school dress code, along with any other forms of jewelry and even painted nails. In fact, piercings of any kind are very uncommon in Japan, even for older people. Usually the people who get ear piercings in Japan are rule-breakers, or people who are trying to look tough.

What are the rules for Japanese school hair? ›

Japanese schoolboys are not allowed to have any hairstyle. They should be simple, short, straight, and black. Now comes one of the weirdest school rules, if you have curled or brown hairs, you have to give written proof that these are your natural hairs.

2022 Rewind: Japan's strict school rules restrict hair, underwear colors and dating. The year 2022 saw a score of news articles on how Japanese schools implement "black" rules, or unreasonably strict restrictions on the color of students' hair or underwear, dating, and even friendly chats during lunch.

Japanese universities have three long vacation periods. The first is summer vacation (September to October) at the end of the spring semester, which is about a month and a half to two months long.

Is Saturday a school day in Japan? Japanese schools officially operate Monday to Friday. However, most Japanese students also engage in extracurricular activities and “cram school”, which are effectively private schools for extra study time. These activities can extend to Saturdays.

Japanese teens wake up at around 7am on weekdays, usually go to bed around 12am on weekdays, and usually get up around 7am on weekends. Japanese teens usually eat breakfast around 7am on weekdays and go to school for around 8 hours on weekdays. Japanese teens usually come home around 5 or 6pm on weekdays and sleep in ...

In the U.S., a typical day of high school starts at about 7:30 a.m. and ends around 3:00 p.m., Monday to Friday. Extracurricular activities are typically scheduled in the afternoons and early evenings during the school week; however, some extracurricular activities may also be scheduled on weekends.

The minimum number of school days in a year is 210 in Japan, compared to 180 in the United States. A significant part of the school calendar is taken up by non-academic events such as sports days and school trips. Teachers often majored in the subjects they taught.

Students are dressed in their school uniforms, if applicable, or wear school jackets or badges. Families gather first for pictures by a school's entrance or gate (again, typically with the sakura in the background to set the scene). Families are then ushered inside the school for their official welcome.

Don't expect to find pizza and pasta for lunch in Japanese schools. Instead, you'll find well-balanced meals with items from each major food group. You can typically expect to see a serving of rice, soup, salad, meat, or fish on a plate. Nearly every day, lunch is served alongside a bottle of milk.