The school day
Harmony Junior School publishes three times for an ordinary day. They are short on the page and large in the life of a family. Everything else — the bus, lunch, collection, a blazer morning — fits inside them.
| Event | Time |
|---|---|
| Gates open | 7:00 AM |
| First bell | 8:00 AM |
| Last bell | 3:30 PM |
7:00 — gates open
The grounds open to learners at 7:00 in the morning. That is the start of the supervised arrival window, not the start of lessons. A child who comes by car should be brought after the gates have opened. A child who comes by bus is on the school’s general morning route, which is timed to reach Mabvazuva Residence Complex between 7:30 and 7:50. The route itself — Damofalls and Zimre Park, Winsor Park, Ruwa Shopping Centre, Mutangadura, then Mabvazuva — is written on the bus route page.
The hour between 7:00 and 8:00 is for arrival, not for a late start. Families are partners in punctuality. The school says so directly in its admissions pages: attendance and punctuality are part of parent involvement, and they contribute to a child’s success. A child who is still on the road at 8:00 has missed the moment the day becomes a lesson.
8:00 — first bell
The first bell is at 8:00. That is when teaching begins. Uniform should already be correct for the day: blazer on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; sports attire on Tuesday and Thursday; home clothes on Friday only for pre-scholars. The detail is on the uniform page.
From the first bell, the class is the teacher’s. With a stated student–teacher ratio of 1:20, the room is small enough for the teacher to take a register of faces, not only of names. Parents who need to pass a message about collection, medicine, or a change of transport should do it through the administration office before the bell, rather than at the classroom door after lessons have started. The office phone is 077 690 8490.
Through the middle of the day
Lunch is served as part of the school day. The school’s own words are that healthy meals are an important part of a school day. Monday and Tuesday have published dishes — rice with chicken, vegetables and butternut; then pasta or spaghetti with mince, vegetables and coleslaw. The rest of the week is cooked and served on the same understanding. Read the meals page for the week as it is published.
The day is also the container for anything that is not an ordinary lesson: a choir rehearsal, a sports afternoon on Tuesday or Thursday, an educational trip in a school minibus. Trips use the same buses that do the morning and afternoon runs. When a trip changes collection time, the school will expect families to have been reachable on the numbers they have given the office.
3:30 — last bell
The last bell is at 3:30. That is the end of the taught day and the start of going home. Children collected by car should be met with that time in mind. Children on the bus are ferried in the afternoon as well as the morning; the minibuses are driven by experienced drivers and are used on the parents’ behalf.
Please do not treat 3:30 as a rough suggestion. A junior school gate at the end of the day is a roll of names and a line of vehicles. A child who is not collected, and who is not on the bus list, is a child the staff must keep. If the plan for the afternoon changes — a different adult, a different bus day, an early collection — tell the administration office in advance.
What this timetable does not list
The school has not published a period-by-period lesson grid on the website. The public timetable is the frame: open, begin, end. Subject lessons sit inside that frame and can move with the class, the teacher, and the term. What does not move, unless the office says so, are the three times above.
If you need the current lesson arrangement for your child’s class, ask the office rather than guessing from a previous term. Email [email protected] or [email protected], or call 077 690 8490. The school is at 31949, Mabvazuva, Ruwa, Harare.