Senior High School on Saturday

My eldest child started Senior High School this month. He goes to a private high school, which is very common in Japan. In our area of Saitama Prefecture private high schools have school on Saturday while public schools don't. They go in the morning and then have club activities in the afternoon. Because he hasn't joined a club yet, he was off at about 12.30 today. But once he joins a club he could be as late as 8 pm. 

It is very strange to have one of the children in school on Saturday. But, believe it or not, when I first came to Japan, almost everyone had school on Saturday. On my very first trip to Japan in 2000 I lived with a home-stay family for three months. The family had two children in Elementary School. I was so surprised back then that they (and elementary school children nationwide) had to go into school every Saturday morning. Japan only moved to a five day school week in April 2002. 

My husband and I were only talking the other day about how there is no concept of  "the Sabbath" in Japan. The concept of a "day off" was only introduced about 150 years ago during the Meiji period in Japan, but it wasn't widely adopted until 1919 when Japan started trading more with the West. So there has only been just over a hundred years of a six day work week. I don't know why they decided to change elementary and junior high schools to a five day week in 2002, but I am so glad they did. I wonder will the senior high schools ever follow suit.

Did you have school on Saturday in your home country?