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.

@shadowboy, if you could choose an easier day with less preparation but 5 weeks' holiday over a year (to reflect the fact that single working parents are only entitled to 5), would you be OK with that?

Why aren't textbooks used in the UK, BTW? Our homework was to take a textbook home, read a couple of pages, do a page of questions (written out onto paper so the textbook has years of usage). Very straightforward for teachers but still meant time marking our work. But not extensive prep time.

I don't think it's a parallel world, just that schools these days are very different to how schools used to be

Like someone in the other thread, I'm a teacher and if you cut the 6 week summer holiday I'm gone.

There is a massive recruitment and retention crisis in teaching. If you expect teachers' to only take 5 weeks annual leave per year education will collapse. I don't care how much extra you pay me - and you will owe me 9 weeks extra salary - I don't want it. I need the time to recharge batteries.

If you don't teach you don't get it.

Why aren't textbooks used in the UK, BTW?

They are but don't go home due to not coming back!
THey got a very bad press a few years ago for lazy teaching (in some cases deserved). They are also ever changing in subjects like business, MFL etc with changing exam specs so often they don't make financial sense for a school to invest in them. For Maths they are often not quite exactly what you want, ie topics missing, misconceptions not included etc. The older Maths books are the best!!

@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.

This is something I could get on board with!