At Lucy Beckham, there are periods of free time known as ILT and Focus. These periods are for the students to either get work done or take a break and rest. These periods can be extremely important to some students who don’t have enough time outside of school to get their work done. When interviewed, a student said, “Whenever I feel like I have too much work, the periods during Focus and ILT help me stay on track.” These periods also allow students to take a break from learning and rest for a little while. When asked, some students said that during their ILT or Focus, they reconnect with friends, play on their phones, or watch YouTube on their Chromebooks. Many students, when asked whether they think ILT and Focus periods are useful, have said that these periods have allowed them to turn in a lot of work that would have been late or missing if they didn’t have the periods. Lucy Beckham is one of the only schools to offer these focus/ILT periods and it has shown to be very useful for the students. ILT is an experiment and even though it has not been long enough to determine if this way of schooling is effective and how successful the students who have been under this program will be, it has so far shown to be beneficial for students. From what we’ve seen, it’s beneficial because students can get more work done if they feel like they have a huge workload, and it can also give them a brief period of relaxation if needed.
