Schools to be judged on their extra-curricular activities. Get in the bin, Bridget.

[noblegiraffe]

"The Department for Education will publish a new set of enrichment benchmarks for schools across five categories: civic engagement, arts and culture, nature, outdoor and adventure, sport and physical activities and developing wider life skills.
Ofsted will consider whether schools are meeting the expectations as part of its inspections, with information made available to parents through new school profiles, the Department for Education added."

This is nothing to do with the curriculum review that has just come out.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/another-expectation-schools-to-be-judged-on-enrichment-benchmarks/

Fuck off. Extra-curricular activities are put on by teachers for free and in our own time. They cannot be an expectation when they are voluntary and unpaid. Should we publish a league table of how MPs meet benchmarks of volunteering and charity work on a weekend and in their holidays?

And if you are cutting school funding (schools are going to be told they have to fund future teacher pay rises out of their budgets by making 'efficiency savings' like there are any possible savings left to be made after the Tories cut everything), then you cannot demand that we do more.

Phillipson is apparently also unhappy that some schools are closing before 3:30pm. Yes, because they can't afford to keep the lights on that long.

You want extra stuff, you have to pay for it.

Why on earth should staff take on extra responsibility in their own time?
Do plumbers or electricians work unpaid?
If they expect support staff to do it they will need paying. There is also the obvious problem that support staff often have dependant children, which is precisely why they work in schools. They won’t be able to do it.

I didn’t see teachers offering any extra time up when lesson or homework planning was virtually eliminated by eg Twinkle then Chat GPT or CoPilot, or homework didn’t need to be marked as much because online platforms like Dr Frost or DoodleMaths do it for you.

Are you joking? Lesson planning has not disappeared at all. Homework marking was a tiny, tiny aspect of marking so even if you're using an online platform, it's saving a tiny amount of time.

The children are in school for 32.5 hours. Currently, I'm in school 7am until 5pm daily, so 50 hours in the building. I then work outside of school for another 25 to 30ish hours per week for further planning, resourcing, marking, etc. Where is this extra time that I've somehow gained back?

And don’t act so outraged at what I said when it’s pretty obvious your first reply to me was a passive aggressive implication I’m a lazy jobless bum😉

Eh? No it wasn’t.
I was pointing out that working parents rely on wraparound care because you asked why people were obsessed’ with schools being open beyond 3.15.
You talked about ‘old school’ families and male breadwinners and I pointed out that it wasn’t as common as you were suggesting. There was no criticism in any of my posts other than what you’ve fabricated in your head.

@FeatherCoat have you considered retraining as a teacher? Your job sounds so incredibly stressful. I am sure you would find teaching an absolute breeze.

“A 3.15 finish is great if you don't work. The obsessionwith before and after school care is because people have jobs.“

sounds like a great way to sarcastically imply I’m a lazy bum but if not then fair enough maybe I’m just being sensitive. I wasn’t saying a sole male breadwinner was super common just that a fair amount of families live that way in fact the most common arrangement from what I see people doing around me is mum working part time and dad working full time. Or using grandparents or a paid childminder as a child care. I am just saying not everyone needs their kids to be in school from 7am till 6pm or whatever it is the state wants to do.

You're definitely being sensitive. At no point did I call you a lazy bum or imply it.
What a ridiculous thing to say.

I have gained a little bit of planning time from AI. Sadly, it's more outweighed by the burden of proving some students are cheating with it and dealing with that.

This is insane! This will be another initiative that causes a wealth divide. The areas with state schools that have PTA’s and parents who can afford to subsidise the cost of these either financially or by volunteering time will score well meanwhile pockets of poverty who perhaps focus on the basic skills and academics will suffer.

What schools don't provide them? That would be really, really unusual.

You mean they are returning to a limited offer of what was widely available to all in the 1980s.

Ok I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt but I wouldn’t be too upset if you out and said because by the standards set by people who put their children in day care from six months I suppose I have been a lazy bum in the past. I don’t want to derail this thread about that though I’m just not big on the idea of school being from 8am-6pm and the fining of families where the child has 100% attendance the rest of the time and good grades but they decide to go on one holiday and get fined meanwhile some literal crackhead I know somehow still has custody of her kids and hasn’t been fined despite being late every day bad attendance and bad grades?

AI means kids need to think critically and creatively in the future. Agree the burden should not just fall on teachers again.

There is plenty of this at our DC’s old primary already. Parents pay for extracurricular (FSM gets some free slots) and local grandparents and Sixth Formers do a fair bit too. My 17 year old loves music and is brilliant with younger children. Good for her CV too. Perhaps more of this? Would foster community engagement. There is also a close link with the local old people’s home via letter writing and visits to dementia cafe. People in the whole of society do need to support each other and have contact, it helps everyone.

You can't fine families for bad grades. And this 'literal crackhead' as you so charmingly put it, will be on the radar of the school and subject to multiple interventions.
Term time holidays are a contentious issue but like it or not, they are disruptive and you need to decide as a family what works for you and that might mean a fine. If you don't like it then you can always choose to home school.

The government has been very clear that schools will need to really stretch their budgets. A big part of this is teachers being more flexible.

The days of teachers simply delivering lessons are over in my view. Many schools are already utilising teachers in a more agile and innovative way to reduce the need for costly support staff.

DH is a headteacher at a free school and teachers at his place do much of the admin, catering and cleaning tasks. This frees up funds for more teachers, who can deliver things like extra-curricular provision.

Bad grades because she is late dropping her kids at school every single day and their home life is so chaotic they cannot concentrate in school. I actually talk to this woman quite a lot (other parents avoid her like the plague) and she has never been fined. Meanwhile a nice family I know who’s kids have good attendance the rest of the year went to turkey for couple weeks in September and got fined

Schools have become exam factories, I'm on a phonics Facebook group and the first two weeks of term were filled with comments from eyfs teachers complaining about HOUR LONG phonics lessons, that they were repeating lessons multiple times etc.

I am a teacher and I am absolutely all for this, but that's because it says enrichment, not extra curricular. One of these is easily covered by Forest School. Another one by celebrating other cultures that are within your community etc.

I do acknowledge I'm a primary teacher of course so it is different for me.

Then your husband is part of the reason there is a teacher retention crisis.

Curious what cleaning tasks they do?

They were fined because they took their child out of school for two weeks in term time. Tbh that is taking the piss.

You can't fine people for having a chaotic life. If the child is absent from school for 10 sessions (5 days) they they will be fined. Those are the rules.

If there is persistent lateness then this will be being dealt with through other interventions.

In secondary schools with Sixth Forms, it is quite easy to get Sixth Formers to put stuff on for younger years and to invite alumni to talk etc from uni. My Year 7 goes to endless societies like this including political society set up by Sixth Formers who are already Green Party members, for example. Also they put on music groups if they are doing Music A level as it supports their uni applications. We do need to think bigger. Older kids helping with younger kids and then doing the same later on, and younger people helping the elderly and vice versa. These are all things people used to happily do in the past for free.

Great, which clubs are you offering to run for free in your own time at your local school for this to happen?

As far as I know the uk is the only country that fines families for taking their children on holiday for a week or two. If the kids have good attendance and good grades the rest of the time it’s a complete invasion of family life.
Like I said I talk to this woman a lot, mainly to make sure her kids are ok, she thinks I’m an idiot Because I’m way younger than than everyone else (pregnant at 15 and look younger than I am) so she tells me everything she’s never been fined and any “intervention” she has is weak and pathetic despite me telling the school some of the things she has told me.

Home school your kids then if you think you should be able to take them out for two weeks consequence free. Two weeks in term time is a pisstake.
She's not been fined because she hasn't hit the threshold for the fines.

Unless you work at the school or a are a governor then you can't really comment on the interventions. I'm a governor at my child's school and also on the parents WhatsApp group so I know there is often a disconnect between what parents think is happening and what is actually taking place.

My ds has never done any drama or dance at school beyond when they put on YouTube when it's raining. He's doing Xmas songs but not actual musical education.

We shouldn't be adding more, it does need a rebalance. Maths and English are important but that is ALL he does bar one hour of geography once a week.

Seriously you think it’s more efficient to have post graduate, professionally qualified staff to clean classrooms than employ people on a lower wage to do it?