Teachers, what would a perfect school setup be? Holidays etc

[AspergersMum]

Looking on the thread about disadvantaged kids during school holidays, I see plenty of teachers saying that they would leave their jobs if they lost their summer holidays. Out of interest, teachers, if you could create the perfect school, how would it work? How many hours per day, how many holidays per year and when? I'm not asking for strictly doable solutions, more like a utopia situation.

I myself am not a teacher but am a Home Educator, not out of choice. I have an autistic child who we haven't found an appropriate place for. Perfect for us would be year-round schooling with a summer period where parents could choose any 3 weeks to take their children out of school, and the same for 2 agreed other months. This would allow 5 weeks which is normal entitlement for time off work.

But, I'd also want much more relaxed school days so longer lunch breaks and breaktimes, and an hour block for older kids for "homework" so that family time in the evenings is protected - I hear that this happens in other countries.

Also I think that extracurriculars are important and could be more linked to schools, so that kids could stay after to do their sports and activities for free.

Obviously this would cost more in taxes but having more options for both parents to work would also be raising more money in taxes.

Also it would require more supply teachers during the year if teachers also get the same option to take any 5 weeks during the year. But if teachers also got the option for at least an hour of their school day to be for lesson planning, so that their evenings were also just for relaxing, would that counteract the stress of the job?

I think 2 weeks for each half term would be better, a week goes far too quickly. I always get ill the first few days of a school break as which wipes me out for a couple of days, a couple of days for planning the new work for next term or marking assessments to be handed back in the first week back and the ‘holiday’ is over. If you go away during half term then you are exhausted trying to cram everything else into just a week.

However the 6 week holiday is really useful so that any building work can be done and hopefully completed before everyone goes back. But I would be ok with a 4 week instead of a 6 week break.

This 6 week holiday I spent the first 2 catching up on cleaning, laundry and redecorating a bedroom (no chance of managing DIY during term time), the second 2 on holiday in the Canaries and the last 2 pottering, finishing odd jobs around the house and planning for next year, as well as fitting in all the park trips and ‘mum’ things Ive missed or postponed the rest of the year.

Your ideas sound lovely Aspergersmum but how will you fund all of this extra time in school? There won't be many extra taxes as most people do have 2 parents in full time work and have to fund childcare.

Supply teaching is unfair on students. It's a necessity when staff are ill or when schools can't recruit. However it is not a long term sustainabile option. Students need staff who know them. Consistency is key.

But if teachers also got the option for at least an hour of their school day to be for lesson planning, so that their evenings were also just for relaxing, would that counteract the stress of the job?
An hour per day is nowehere near enough. Currently you get 10% of your teaching time, for most people this is about 3 hours per week. Most staff I know do at least 15 more hours on top of this (plenty do even more).

In terms of holiday pattern I'd like October and February to be 2 week half terms. May couldn't be due to exam season. Then 4 weeks in the Summer. But I'm pretty happy with them as they are now.

In an ideal world I would like a two week break at the October half term as that term is a long slog and as school work eats into holiday time , that half term seems shorter. I did a stint at a private school that did have two weeks in October and it was lovely, I hugely appreciated it. A sprinkle of extra days onto the feb half term and the Xmas holidays to use another week , then 4 weeks in summer instead of 6.

I would be happy with a 6 week limit on each term. The long 8 week terms are killers and the children really struggle.

I would want to move things around in secondary school so that children have their results before applying to sixth form/university but I don’t know how that could work in practice.

I’d have 6 week terms as that is a perfect block for me, then a week off. The school day is fine, but I’d have an hour and a half for lunch-some schools near me have cut it to 40 minutes or removed it completely and have 2x20 min breaks and I don’t like it at all.

When they did that recent ‘Back in time for school’ program-showing all of the teachers and children sitting down in the hall together and serving the food, eating and chatting was great-a real social time.

I would be happy for longer lunches but only if there were enough resources for the children. Many cant cope with the lack of structure and many problems can arise. I would also have areas where the children who dont want to be running around outside can sit and read/draw/relax.

*Pinkflipflop85

I would be happy for longer lunches but only if there were enough resources for the children. Many cant cope with the lack of structure and many problems can arise. I would also have areas where the children who dont want to be running around outside can sit and read/draw/relax.*

Absolutely agree on both counts. This is Utopia after all so funding would be amazing!

I would also have a class budget and afternoons PPA whilst the children were taught ICT, sport and art by subject specialists.

I would also scrap Ofsted. In my view, so long as the children are happy and making progress (which the head can justify through standardised data) then schools should be left to educate children. Should there be any complaints, there should be procedures to deal with it effectively.

An hour and a half lunch is a mixed blessing though. My day would become an hour longer (finishing teaching at 4). Then I'd have to start marking planning etc, never mind the extra childcare that would be needed.

I bet an hour and a half lunch would have to be teacher supervised too,so you couldn't even use the time in the day.

Currently half an hour is enough, eat, grab resources, move rooms and ready for the next lesson. No time to do anything useful so I don't bother.

Where I spent part of my childhood, lunch hour was an hour and was unsupervised (secondary age). No restrictions so some kids went home, others walked. Strangely it worked. But there were also afterschool sports and drama and you couldn't participate if you had low grades or problems with behaviour. Also smaller classes in the younger years and no classroom assistants, but kids with SEN were taken out of classes to the special classroom often or full time. But funding wasn't an issue there as local taxes paid for the local schools and people were very community oriented.

Id have August off and the extra 2 weeks added to October and February 1/2 term. Lunch would be an hour and I'd bring back 15 mins afternoon play.

@fedup21 I agree with Ofsted. No Ofsted where I spent part of my childhood, just annual testing for Maths and English.

*with NO Ofsted, not agreeing with Ofsted!!!

I wonder too with changing climates whether schools will be forced to change how they operate in the summer (and possibly with crazy winter weather events if they become more common). That is where I think that year-round schooling could mean more flexibility for closing the school when it is too hot instead of having hot kids not paying proper attention.

When I talk about supply teachers, I am coming from the standpoint of having "substitutes" at school who were parents, paid when they were needed. I guess that is uncommon here but we always knew our substitutes and were respectful towards them as they knew our parents! There were only a small handful of them and they were only short-term, a day or couple of days. But, they also were only working through textbooks which I understand aren't used much here. So they only had to look through a couple of pages and assign work.

When I talk about supply teachers, I am coming from the standpoint of having "substitutes" at school who were parents, paid when they were needed. I guess that is uncommon here but we always knew our substitutes and were respectful towards them as they knew our parents! There were only a small handful of them and they were only short-term, a day or couple of days. But, they also were only working through textbooks which I understand aren't used much here. So they only had to look through a couple of pages and assign work.

Parents or qualified teachers?

we always knew our substitutes and were respectful towards them as they knew our parents!

There's no respect for teachers, let alone supply staff.

I need the six week holiday. Takes me at least a week to unwind and the last two weeks are planning, prep and data analysis!

But, I'd also want much more relaxed school days so longer lunch breaks and breaktimes, and an hour block for older kids for "homework" so that family time in the evenings is protected - I hear that this happens in other countries.

Also I think that extracurriculars are important and could be more linked to schools, so that kids could stay after to do their sports and activities for free.

What about those teachers who would like to spend time with their own family?

Quote fail there!

@fedup21, literally parents of students. I think they were background checked. Just a handful of parents willing to do it, who wanted to earn a bit of extra money. It sounds weird but it worked really well. We knew them, they knew us and our parents, it kept us in check really well.

Teacher here- I would want 2 weeks for for Christmas and 2 weeks for the October half term as students usually find that autumn term hideously hard going. Summer down to 5 weeks rather than 6.5

School day should be a staggered start so those with primary can get kids there first etc- eg primaries starting at 9am and secondary 9.15/9.30. Smaller classes with a government cap at 25. Teachers should get more paid prep time- I get 3 hours per week of official prep but I probably need 20 hours. A paid 9 hours a week would be a start.

We could never fund it though!

I think the 6 weeks defo needs to be cut to 4 and add the other 2 weeks onto other holidays, christmas & October etc! (not a teacher, just a fed up mum 😁)

I personally don't understand why they don't have longer breaks in winter when its cold and horrible outside 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Shestoodinthestorm, extracurriculars would not have to be led by teachers. This is a perfect world we're envisaging. Teachers would not be missing out on their lunch breaks to supervise at breaktime.

I feel like I have a weird parallel world thing going on here, as my schooling was obviously very different. Teachers only did afterschool sports if they wanted to earn extra money. Younger kids did have supervision at breaktimes but not by teachers - by support staff.