D15 goes to a school with what they call "block scheduling", but it is not focusing for a whole day on a subject. Essentially they have 2-3 academic courses per quarter, with longer classes in the subjects every day than they would have with a "normal" non-block schedule. Typically a class (eg, French III) would meet 1st and 3rd quarter of the school year, and not 2nd and 4th quarter. Then the kids might have fine arts or electives that do occur every quarter, like choir.
I think it works pretty well, D gets to dig in more deeply to whatever subjects she has that quarter. And it is easier to keep track of assignments with fewer academic classes in a quarter. However, they cover a lot of territory in the classes (essentially a full year's material in 2 quarters). I think it is toughest for the math classes, a lot of kids have trouble with the pace.
